DISSERTATIONS
UPON AN
HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS.
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DISSERTATIONS
UPON
THE PRINCIPLES
AND
ARRANGEMENT
OF AN
HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS.
BY
EDWARD GRESWELL, B. D.
FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD.
<a ———___
SECOND EDITION,
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
tena
VOL. III.
OXFORD,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
MDCCCXXXVII.
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THE CONTENTS
OF
THE THIRD VOLUME.
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DISSERTATION XXXIV.
On the notices of time supplied by Luke xii ............4.. I—25
Awacuronism involved in the place sometimes assigned to this
chapter—II1 consequences of it—Virtue of Christian watchful-
Be OEE μι OOP EL ONG OES eee i δὰ Pee I—3
Particulars of this chapter belong to the same point of time—Divi-
sions of it, which supply notices of time—Address of our Lord to
the disciples—Perceptible difference between the language now
employed, and on a former occasion—Apostrophe to our Lord’s
future sufferings—Bdrricpa and BarriferOar—Baptism ὑπὲρ τῶν
vexpov—Vicarious baptism—The war and the fire, which our
Lord came to cause upon earth—The hour of our Lord—Para-
phrase of his words generally—Comparison with his language in
δ bs AR RAW Νῶε BERS. O04 FE 3—I11
Address of our Lord to the multitude—Reference to the demand of
a sign—Reasoning of our Lord in refusal of that demand—Differ-
ence between his language now, and in St. Matthew—Time or
season of the Messiah in general—Last time or season of the Mes-
heck wok saphicing mettre OE OT ee Oa rs aa II—I2
Illustrations employed by our Lord—Season of rain and fair wea-
ther in Judea—First rain and latter rain—Harvest in Judea—
Δυομένης Πλειάδος, as used by Josephus of the vernal rains—Date of
the Πλειάδων dious—Similar language of Auschylus—Time of the
year of the capture of Troy—Annual inundations of the Jordan—
Duration of the dry season—Inauguration of Saul—Dearth in the
time of Elijah—Menander, the Tyrian historian—Rizpah, daughter
of Aiah—Recurrence of the autumnal rains—H νεφέλη, or the
CON. ὐχῤννοινν Mal eed As ch SRW ba ke ποτ ἮΝ 13—18
᾿ THE CONTENTS.
South winds in Judea, hot and parching—Winds through the year,
north and south—The south wind, a fair wind—Aevxdévoros—The
south wind, Etesian—South winds, the winter winds—Lucretius’
description of the seasons—South winds, blowing in the spring
quarter—Ornithie or Chelidonie—Capture of Masada—Caravans
from Egypt to India, and back—South winds in Egypt, in April
and May—Murmuring of the Israelites at Taberah—Scene on the
Lake of Galilee—Heats in harvest, in Judea .......... 18—23
General conclusion from the above premises—The present, the last
or concluding season of the Messiah’s ministry on earth. . 23—24
Confirmed by the address to the people—Nature of the reasoning em-
ployed—Power of the creditor over the person of the debtor—Ap-
plication of the supposed state of the case, to our Lord and the
ΟΝ OF Che CMe oi sk eb vise hee ἐν eens 24—25
DISSERTATION XXXV.
On the incident relating to the Galileans, Luke xiii.1-9....26-37
Idiom of St. Luke, ev ἀδ 16 ρος oe ce eee 26
Galileans in question, whether followers of Judas of Galilee, or na-
tives of Galilee—Name of Galileans, as descriptive of a sect—
Herodians—Judas of Galilee, a native of Gamala, Golan, or Gau-
lan—Name of his party, Zealots or Sicarii—Zadok the Pharisee—
Party of Judas, suppressed or dispersed at its first appearance—De-
scendants of Judas, at intermediate periods, afterwards—Mana-
hem, U.C. 819—Principles of the Galileans, incompatible with
the ascendancy of the Roman government—Jesus in Galilee at
this time—Galileans the subjects of the recent occurrence, a part
of the people of Galilee. Ὁ, ὅτι ενν io ks ει 26—30
Fate of these Galileans, a recent event—Language of our Lord in re-
ference to the eighteen—Site of Siloam or Siloah—Fate of these
Galileans, not brought on themselves—Scene of the event, the
temple, and presence of Pilate at Jerusalem, an argument that it
happened at some feast—Czsarea—Guard in Antonia—Case of
Barabbas, an argument of a recent sedition in Jerusalem—Blood_
shed on that occasion, the bloodshed of Roman soldiers. . 3o—32
Presence of Herod at Jerusalem, at the last Passover—Quarrel of
THE CONTENTS. te
Herod and Pilate—Reconciliation effected, by the sending of our
Lord to Herod—Argument thence derivable of the cause of the
misunderstanding previously. ..........0.2 000 cecees 32—34
Circuit of our Lord, now drawing to a close—Resort of the Jews to
Jerusalem, before the feasts—General conclusion from all these
premises—Confirmation of this view, by the account of what
passed at our Lord’s examination—Silence of Josephus no objec-
tion—Paucity of particulars of the administration of Pilate—
Tranquillity of the previous part of our Lord’s public ministry—
Sedition of Barabbas at its end, permissive ............ 34—37
DISSERTATION XXXVI
On the question concerning divorce, Matt. xix. 3-12. Mark x.
EE νον» dkdonevaeseakns asa anniek ockestneeieeuerenn ies ss 38—44
Omission of this account by St. Luke—Omissions in St. Matthew,
supplied by St. Mark—Resulting conclusion of the final end of
St. Mark’s account—Reconciliation of the accounts on this prin-
ΝΥ ον φιν ων ee Ul vsaeneh bp ιν 3839
Question, as stated in St. Mark, presupposes St. Matthew’s—Re-
ference of our Lord to the decision of Moses—Not inconsistent
with his deciding the same question himself—Rule of our Lord,
in replying to questions from the law—Liberty of divorce, as con-
ceded by the law—Revival of the original law of marriage upon
Christians—Question of the Pharisees, not prompted by a proper
motive—Previous decisions of our Lord on the subject of divorce—
Abuse of the license of divorce by the rabbis, among the people
of the time, as well as of polygamy—Final decision of our Lord
Oe Menta bpecti nae, eed Sat ee cele ρ νοῦς Clie ta: 39—43
Harmony of the narratives in conjunction .............. 43—44
DISSERTATION XXXVII.
On the miracles performed at Jericho .....««νννννννννος 45—50
Difference in the three accounts of these miracles—St. Luke’s mi-
racle performed before the arrival at Jericho, St. Mark’s after—On
no supposition to be made to appear the same.............. 45
Ancient mode of reconciling these difficulties, the trae—Two mi-
a 4
tai THE CONTENTS.
racles performed, and at distinct times: the second related by
St. Mark, the first by St. Luke, and both by St. Matthew ..... 46
Reasons, why St. Matthew should join both these accounts—Does
not affirm his order of them—Kai ἰδοὺ, not a note of time...46—47
Reasons, why St. Mark should relate one of these miracles, and St.
Luke the other—Time of St. Matthew’s double miracle, the same
in part with that of the single miracle in St. Mark—Case of Barti-
meus, probably peculiar—Miracle of St. Luke supplies the omis-
sion in St. Mark, and rectifies the order in St. Matthew—T wo
single miracles of these two evangelists, equivalent to the one
double miracle of the third—A priori probability of a double mi-
racle—Circumstances of the double miracle in St. Matthew, alike
applicable to the single in either instance.............. 47--50
DISSERTATION XXXVIII.
On the time of the arrival at Bethany—and on the day of the
SENN ὅν CRE CRIA. 650.0 iis eas ρον edn gen arebie 51—88
Controverted questions, in the last division of the Gospel history—
‘Time of the atrival at Bethany.:..726.0. 02. 20. soles wes. 51—52
No date of the arrival, in the first three accounts—Supplement of the
defect by the fourth—Idiomatic sense of πρὸ or μετὰ, in notices of
time—Not a classical Greek idiom—Founded on the similar La-
tin idiom—Examples or illustrations of both, Greek and Latin—
General conclusion from these premises—Day of the arrival of
our Saviour at Bethany, the sixth day exclusive, or the seventh day
inclusive, of the day of τὸ wacxa —Td πάσχα necessarily inclusive of
the day of the Passover—Day of the arrival at Bethany, the eighth
of Nisan—The eighth of Nisan, March 30, and both a Satur-
OPES ios cia alsa i'n 5 6s sean Oe AL See Pisa 3 AK: 52—59
Arrival of our Saviour, not necessarily on the sabbath—Course of
our Saviour, from the morning of the passage through Jericho, to
the time of stopping with Zaccheus—Jesus in Perea, on the
morning in question—Jordan crossed at Bethabara—Distance of
Jericho from Jerusalem—Rate of an ordinary day’s journey—Au-
lon of Jordan, and breadth, on both sides of the river—Site of Abila
on the verge of the Aulon—Distance of Abila from Bethany—
House of Zaccheus, between Jerusalem and Jericho—Final end of
THE CON'TENTS. ix
our Lord, to stop with him for the night—Use of καταλῦσαι,
ar\a@s—Pitching time of travellers, in the East—Iapackevy on the
Friday—Supper-time of the Romans and Jews—General conclu-
sion, that our Lord stopped with Zaccheus on the evening of
Friday the seventh of Nisan, within three or four miles of
POADARY 06 250) 54 CI SR RAOUL SFI eh PPE 59—64
Arrival at Bethany on Saturday, after the close of the Sabbath.—The
Sabbath, probably kept at this time asa fast—Testimonies to that
effect—Customs or traditions of later times, not implicitly true of
the times of our Saviour—Supper on the first day of the week, dif-
ferent from usual—Accords with the supper given to our Lord at
Bethany—Time of the evening's repast among the Romans—Time
among the Jews, later than sunset—Supper-time in the East, gene-
rally—Usage of the Greeks, to sup after sunset—Followers of our
Lord might travel to their own homes on Friday, though he himself
stopped with Zaccheus—General conclusion from the above pre-
mises—Passion-week of our Lord strictly a week, from Saturday
ΠΝ Ge ce ig, Vin 5 viele id boo 8 elie wh oe ts ws 64—69
Course of events, from the arrival at Bethany to the day of the pro-
cession—Limits of a sabbath day's journey—Resort of the Jews to
Bethany, on Sunday in Passion-week—Lazarus at Bethany, along
with Jesus—Day of the procession to the temple, Monday in Pas-
sion week—Improperly referred to Palm Sunday—Confirmed by
the testimony reflexively, of the other evangelists—Tenth of Nisan,
or Monday in Passion-week, the only fit day for our Lord’s first ap-
pearance in public on this occasion—Necessary to the details of sub-
sequent events in Passion-week, to date them from this day—Connec-
tion of these events, and the days on which they were to happen—
Possible reference of the three days now passed in public, to the
three years of the previous ministry.................. 70—75
Accounts of the procession to the temple—Bethphage, why specified
before Bethany—High road -to Jericho over Olivet-—Meeting of
our Saviour, by the Jews from Jerusalem—Boughs, why carried on
this occasion—Meaning of the act of strewing clothes in the
way—Mission of Peter and John for the ass’s colt—Reconci-
liation of the several accounts—The colt alone used by our Lord
—Ephippia or garments of the disciples, on which be rode—Pre-
sence of the dam along with the colt—Hosannas or acclamations
of our Lord’s attendants—KardBacts of mount Olivet-—Remon-
x THE CONTENTS.
strance of the Pharisees—Acclamations of the multitude, and
various accounts of each—Weeping of Jesus over the city—Pro-
cession through the city—Arrival at the temple, and proceedings
there—Departure of our Lord for the night—Question of the
Hellenes or Greeks—Not Jews of the dispersion, but Gentile
proselytes—General conclusion of the time of the arrival at the
MO λυ il is coy wes cadens wee Os 75—86
Inference thence deducible of the final end of the procession itself
—Lawb for the Passover, taken up on the tenth of Nisan—Pascha
Aiigyptium, and supposed peculiarity of circumstances belonging
to it—Our Lord, the daily sacrifice as well as the Paschal victim—
Lambs for the daily sacrifice, taken up'four days before they were
oereG τ at SGU νυ νε ον ον Be Rha a Bes 86—88
DISSERTATION XXXIX.
On the proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week, and on the
time of the cleansing of the Temple ...........044. 89—108
Cursing of the barren fig-tree—Reason of the omission by St. Luke
—LIIpwi and Ipeia—Time of morning’s meal among the Jews—
Morning service 10 the temple ΡΝ ΤΑΝ ose ns hos 89—9g0
Circumstances of the account—Double crop of the fig—Ficus
biferee, or prodromi—Early ripe figs—Fruits of trees offered with
the dpayna—Physical history of the early ripe fig, from Hilary and
Ambrose—The modern Boccore—Permanency of fruits in Judea
—Egyptian fig or mulberry—Plain of Themiscyra on the Pon-
ιν χα ha Nee bel inl μὸν τὰν wee Hials ieee 91---Ο4
Reconciliation of the accounts of the effect of the miracle on the
tree—Remark of the apostles, and our Lord’s reply to it—The ef-
fect on the tree visible at the moment, complete some time after—
St. Mark’s account prepares the way for a renewed allusion to the
sibbect the Next λον 055 4.65056 ραν shih 6 os eet es 94—97
Cleansing of the temple, whether now performed——Cleansing of the
temple, according to St. Matthew, either twice performed, or re-
lated out of its place the day before—Incident of the children in
the temple—Probability of the latter alternative, rather than the
former—Circumstances of the cleansing in St. Matthew, similar
to those in St. Mark—Arrival.at the temple the evening before,
“THE CONTENTS. <i
too late in the day, for any cleansing to have then taken place—
Cleansing of the day preceding must have failed of its effect, if
repeated the next morning—Teaching of our Lord after the
cleansing, incompatible with the supposition of a cleansing the
day before—Offence of the Jewish rulers at this teaching, pro-
duced by the cleansing—lIdiomatic peculiarity of St. Luke’s ac-
count of these proceedings—Question, By what authority doest
thou these things ? of the following day, due to the act of cleansing,
the day before—Cleansing of the temple on this occasion, at the
close of our Saviour’s ministry, analogous to the same act at the
outset of it—Once performed on each occasion, for a similar reason—
Probable reasons of the anticipation in this instance, in St. Mat-
τυ he oe hua lati wes Cuebah ites 98—108
DISSERTATION XL.
On the proceedings of Wednesday in Passion-week, and on
the time of the unction at Bethany ...............+5 199—132
Peculiarity of this day in the history of our Saviour’s ministry, and
remarkable character of the events upon it................ 109
Renewal of the conversation in reference to the fig-tree—Difference
between what was now said by our Saviour, and what was said
ME RS src ραν μά re pk τα δ᾽ ἈΝ phase Savicor cts’ cauukw Δ Ὶ 10g—III
Divisions of the rest of the day—Events in the temple—Questions
successively proposed to our Lord by the three principal sects,
and their objects, individually and collectively—Probably the re-
νυ OE SOS SPS Fad TII—112
Question of the sanhedrim, By what authority doest thou these
things ?—Members, or constituent parts of the sanhedrim—Time of
the interrogation—Parable or illustration of the father and two
sons—Parable of the vineyard—Parable of the wedding garment—
Omissions in St. Mark and St. Luke .............. 112--ο 14
Question of the Herodians—Involved the principles of Judas of
Galilee—Name omitted, characters or persons, described by St,
Luke—Language of their address in St. Mark... .... 114—115
Question of the Sadducees—Proposed a real case—Admits a resur-
rection to come, in order to reduce it ad absurdum—False first
xii THE CONTENTS.
principle, on which it is founded—Object and effect of our Saviour’s
answer—Final end of marriage—Limit of the increase of the
human species, finite—Harmony of the various accounts—Obser-
vation of the Scribe, on the reply of our Saviour—Question, con-
cerning the greatest commandment—Why omitted by St. Luke,
and recorded by St. Mark—The motive of this inquirer, good—
Πειράζων, not tempting, but making trial—Time taken up by these
WN re. aos se SUD! ἀν τ Segal 115—119
Question of our Lord, Whose son the Christ should be Number of
the Pharisees—Harmony of the accounts—Proper divinity and
proper humanity of Jesus Christ, both involved in this ques-
δ ον Epa FN Gea pr ned SOS LE GENCE Pe Masks yas), 110-121
Reproof of our Lord of the Scribes, recorded by St. Mark and St.
Luke—Reasons for considering this both distinct from, and prior
to, the longer invective in St. Matthew—Scribes and Pharisees not
necessarily the same—Court of the women; and the treasury
or Corban, there—Women’s court, why the place of our Lord’s
wehort Th the temme sso ρον νον is els Vt I2I—123
Time and place of John xii. 37 to end—Considerations which fix it
to the last day of our Lord’s public ministry, and the last discourse
OE SUNN ον os Saks itn dos inne hd pte G ales We Wad one 123—125
Time of Matthew xxiii—Close of our Lord’s public: ministry, and
end of proceedings within the temple .............. 125—126
Events without the temple—Prophecy on mount Olivet-—Remark of
St. Luke on the mode of our Lord’s employment hitherto, at its
Mei a de IR ule We ie uncer, 3 126—127
Unction at Bethany—AlJtogether different from the unction in St.
Luke—Unction in St. John, the same with that in St. Matthew
and St. Mark—Unction in St. John, recorded in its proper place ;
yet the unction in St. Matthew and St. Mark, not properly recorded
out of it—Distinction between a transposition, and an historical
recapitulation—Connection of the account of the unction with the
treachery of Judas—History of this treachery, divisible into three
stages—First conception of the design, due to what passed at the
unction on the Saturday—Compact with the sanhedrim, concluded
on the Wednesday—No objection, that Judas must have harboured
THE CONTENTS. ΧΕΙ
his design from that time to this—Language of the evangelists
in allusion to the treachery of Judas, in harmony with the above
ὁδί. τ ϑῶς Cao αὐ χρυ ied ot 127--132
DISSERTATION ΧΙ].
On the time of the celebration of the last Supper ...133—172
Difficulty of the present question, and to what cause due—A priori
improbability in a case like this, that the testimony of one of the
Gospel accounts should be irreconcilably at variance with that of
ον κῶν δύ βεῥνεν, ΣΝ ἈΚ 133—134
The last supper of our Lord, a passover in some sense or other :
yet the Jewish passover, at the time of its celebration, still to
come— Distinction of τὸ πάσχα, and ra a{vuya—Neither used ἁπλῶς,
without including the other—Usage of St. John in this respect—
Usage of Josephus—Usage of Philo Judeus—‘H διάβασις, or τὰ δια-
Sarnpia—Usage of Ezechiel Tragicus .............. 134—138
Proposed solutions of the difficulty—Objections to the opinion, which
maintains that our Saviour’s passover and the Jewish were one
and the same—Sense of τὸ πάσχα, according to this opinion—
Name of Passover, applied to the peace offerings of the fourteenth
of Nisan—¢ayeiv τὸ πάσχα never used, except of the actual paschal
ΟΠ ake ee Re ett ee ek Coos ΟΡ ΣΝ νι, 138—140
Παρασκευὴ absolutely, προσάββατον--- Ἐπέφωσκε, in St. Luke—Iapacxevy)
τοῦ πάσχα, not simply spood8Barov—Sabbaths of the passover pro-
perly what—Limits of the προσάββατον, or παρασκευὴ dmkds—Limits
of the παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα---Τιροσάββατον, a general, προσάββατον
τοῦ πάσχα, a specific designation, which cannot be interchangeable—
No part of the fifteenth of Nisan could be devoted to the prepara-
tion for the sabbath—The parasceue, or preparation, part of a
HORNE CME ἐν eG ALE obs 140—I 42
Alternatives, between which we have still to choose—More probable
that our Lord anticipated the regular passover, than that the
regular passover was celebrated on a wrong day—Reasons for
coming ὦ tis τ Se νον νος, 142—143
Argument first—Passover of our Lord, whatever it was, celebrated
on Thursday—Message of our Lord, preparatory to its celebration,
xiv THE CONTENTS.
sent to one who was probably a disciple—Resort of strangers to
Jerusalem at the passover—Opening of the houses of the inhabit-
ants to their reception—Paschal companies or sodalitia—Our
Lord’s message nothing extraordinary, on the supposition of the
regular passover—His time, necessarily his hour, or passion—
Masters of families empowered to act as priests, in behalf of
themselves and their families, in the sacrifice of the passover—
Testimonies to this effect of Philo Judeus—Not at variance with
the accounts of Josephus, or with cases in point in the Old Testa-
ment—The first pasSover, so sacrificed by each master of a family
for himself—Multitude of victims at the passover, and time within
which they were sacrificed—Computation of Josephus, below the
truth—Difficulty solved by these conclusions ........ 144—149
Argument second—Precaution of the sanhedrim, not to apprehend
our Lord during the feast—Not likely to be changed by the over-
ture of Judas—'Arep ὄχλου, means what—Our Lord actually ar-
rested, tried, and executed, in time to anticipate the feast—Cir-
cumstances of the account, between the time of Judas’ going out,
and our Lord’s apprehension, inconsistent with the celebration of
the passover, as then and there going on............ 14Q—I52
Argument third—Attempt of Pilate to liberate our Saviour, in defer-
ence to the privilege of the feast—Meaning of the phrase, κατὰ
éoprnv— Probable date of the privilege—Feast arrived, when the
people insisted on the privilege, but not past—Observance of
this privilege by Pilate on former occasions—Conclusion thence
deducible, that he had been more than one year in office at the
time of the Passion—Coming in of Simon of Cyrene, on the morn-
ing of the crucifixion—Had for its object the celebration of the
passover that day—Distance from Jerusalem, on the morning of
the passover, at which the passover might still be kept. . 152-154
Argument fourth—The passover, two days distant, at the close of the
prophecy on the mount ; that is, on the evening of Wednesday in
Passion week—Passover, coupled with the delivering up of our
Lord at the same time—This delivering up, the work of the Fri-
ἀν Pe Ce Gt PRR ee pase hee ee o> 154-155
Argument fifth—Apprehension of our Lord, his trial and execution,
on the fifteenth of Nisan, inconsistent with the strictness of the
observance of the sabbath at this time—Testimonies to that strict-
THE CONTENTS. XV
ness—Observance of the sabbath among the Gentiles—Opera
servilia, proscribed on the sabbath—Extraordinary sabbaths, as
sacred. as ordinary—Sanctity of the sabbath, not purposely waived
in the case of our Saviour—Crucifixion of the thieves along with
him, an argument that there was nothing special in his case—
Sanctity of the sabbath extended to the παρασκευὴ, from the ninth
hour of the day before—Bodies of our Saviour and of the thieves,
taken down with the commencement of the παρασκευὴ, and against
the sabbath, as it was ......... hie wee uses sate 155—160
Argument sixth—The sabbath which followed the crucifixion an
High day ; because an ordinary and an extraordinary sabbath coin-
cided upon it: that is, it was the fifteenth of Nisan, and the
seventh day of the week—No high day, the effect of the coincid-
ence of the sabbath upon any day of a feast, but the fifteenth or
twenty-first of Nisan, or the fifteenth or twenty-second of
ἘΝ, ns cag ue χω are ΟΣ ΤΗΣ ἀρ RET: EA See LK Sek Oe 160—161
Argument seventh—Fulfilment of the legal equity, in the death of
our Lord—System of types necessarily connected with the truth
of the typical character of the passover—Passover fixed to one
day in the year, Nisan 14—Passover fixed to one place in Judea,
Jerusalem—Circumstances of the passover, all conspire to point
out our Saviour as the true paschal victim—Ninth hour, or article
of his expiration—Meaning of the phrase, between the evenings—
Death of our Saviour answered also to the daily sacrifice of the
fourteenth of Nisan—Ordinary time of morning and evening service
—Beginning of evening, among the Jews—Morning service might
not be over before the fourth hour of the day—Time of evening
service on the paschal day—Coincidence of the miraculous dark-
ness with the temple service going on at that moment—Resurrec-
tion of our Saviour, and the wave sheaf offered at the passover—
Time of this presentation, critically the time when our Saviour
rose from the dead—Ancient punctuation of St. Mark’s words,
ἀναστὰς δὲ mpwi—Essential to all these correspondencies, that
Christ should have died on the fourteenth of Nisan... 161—168
Judgment of the primitive church on the above questions—Unani-
mous, in one and the same conclusion—Testimony of St. John,
from the necessity of the case, not contradictory to, but explana-
tory of, that of the other Evangelists— Language of these last not
sufficiently explicit, and why—The last passover, the first eucharist
xvi THE CONTENTS.
or sacrament—This eucharist proleptical, and therefore probably
tine paabovels See ie ee .. 168—170
Day of a Jewish feast, reckoned to be arrived when its proper even-
ing was come—The paschal feast an octave: and therefore the
evening of Thursday part of the feast of unleavened bread, as
well as the morning of Friday—Our Lord’s passover celebrated at
the beginning of the same νυχθήμερον, of which the Jewish was
celebrated at the end—Passover always eaten on the evening of the
fifteenth—Construction put by the Greek interpreters on the
πρώτη of St. Matthew or St. Mark ................ 170——-172
DISSERTATION XLII.
On the proceedings of the night of Thursday, and the morn-
ing of Friday, in Passion-week.......s.cccesesevees 173—256
Distribution of the events of both these periods—Harmony of the
accounts—All difficulties removed by the hypothesis of supple-
ΜΝ ros Saas es wa hak wy KM aa aes 173—174
Events of the first division—Beginning of our Saviour’s paschal
supper—Paschal ritual of the time—lIntroduction of the first cup,
according to St. Luke—Washing the feet of the disciples, in
St. John—Institution of the first part of the Christian sacrament,
the breaking of the bread—Absence of the article, in the allusion
to the bread—Proper sense of dpros—lInstitution of the cup, at a
time distinct from that of the bread—Antedated by St. Luke,
postponed by St. Matthew and St. Mark; and for what reason in
either case—Final end of the evangelical accounts of the proceed-
ings at the last supper in general, twofold—Treachery of Judas,
and its connection with these proceedings—Sacramental institu-
tion, not a proper transposition in either account...... 174—183
Point of time of the introduction of John xiii. 18—-20—Coincidence
of all the accounts at this point—Conversation between Peter and
John, and our Lord, relative to the recognition of Judas—Roman
custom of reclining upon couches at meat—Place of the master
of a table—Propriety of the language of St. John—Entering of
Satan into Judas—Point of time of the departure of Ju-
,. 183 —186
GOS oer Ωρ we Fees
First prediction of the denials of Peter—Dispute among the disciples
THE CONTENTS. XVI
_ which should be greatest—Menial or servile character of the duty of
washing the feet—Proper sense of ἐξαιτεῖσθαι---- ϑοοοηα prediction of
the denials of Peter—lInstitution of the second part of the Christian
sacrament, the blessing of the cup—The Hillel, or Psalms of
thanksgiving—Protracted conversation of our Lord and the disci-
ples in the upper chamber, still ........-.......4. 187—191
Departure of our Lord and the disciples from the upper chamber—
‘Time of the night when it took place—Gethsemane—Gardens in
the suburbs of Jerusalem—Distance of Olivet from Jerusalem—
Third prediction of the denials of Peter—First promise of the
manifestation of our Lord in Galilee .............. 191-104
Agony in the garden—Tacitly recognised by St. John—Proper sense
. of καθεύδετε τὸ λοιπὸν καὶ ἀναπαύεσθε, in St. Matthew and St. Mark
—Supplementary character of this part of St. Luke’s accounts—
Distinction of what passed between our Lord, and the eight apo-
stles at the entrance of the garden, and the three within the
garden—Ai@ov βολὴ, inapplicable to the description of a little way
off—Sleep of the disciples—Duration of the agony—Critical in-
terposition of the arrival of Judas.................. -194—198
Arrangement of subsequent events—Attempted resistance of Peter
—Address of our Lord to Judas—Omission of the name of Peter
in the former accounts—The young man in St. Mark. . 1g8—200
Events of the second division—House of the high priest in Jerusa-
lem—Site of the temple—Annas, the vicar of Caiaphas— First
of our Lord’s examinations, the examination before Caiaphas in
St. John—Second examination of our Lord, the examination
before the sanhedrim in St. Matthew and St. Mark—Interval
between the two—Usage of our Lord, at the end of it—Third
examination of our Lord, the examination before the sanhedrim
in St. Luke—Particular proofs of the distinctness of this last from
all before it—Council chamber of the sanhedrim—Motive to the
second examination by the sanhedrim, the preexisting difficulty of
the want of testimony against our Lord—Informality of the time
of the former examinations—The forms of the Jewish law pur-
posely observed in the proceedings against Jesus—Number of the
witnesses suborned against him—Cleansing of the temple in St.
John, and allusion to it in this fact in St. Matthew and St.
Mark
VOL. III. b
xviii THE CONTENTS.
Denials of Peter, and times of each—Harmony of the accounts in
detail—Female doorkeepers among the Jews—St. John known
to be a disciple of Jesus—First denial—Second and third denials—
Turning of our Lord, and looking upon Peter—’Em:Batov—Place of
the denials in the examinations of Jesus—Times, ascertained by the
crowing of the cock—Language of our Lord, in reference to the
denials, as before the crowing of the cock—Cock-crow ἁπλῶς, a
well defined point of the night—Coincident with the fourth night
watch—Designated also as περὶ ép8pov—Cock-crows, distinct from
this, twofold—Testimonies to, and illustrations of, all these state-
ments—Divisions of the night, inclusive of cock-crow as well as
the rest—Censorinus, Macrobius, Varro, Marcus Aurelius—Further
illustrations of the time described by cock-crow—Cock-crow, in
the primitive church—Cock-crow, the time of the resurrection of
our Lord—Place of the gallicinium in these divisions—Cock-crow
at the equinox, four in the morning—Moretum of Virgil—Result-
ing times of the denials of Peter, and of the first and second ex-
Sarinations-ef Jee OP. Wee PG. PO. ODS ΟΡ ΟΝ 207—217
Events of the third division—Repentance and death of Judas—Ab-
duction of Jesus to Pilate had for its object the execution of the
sentence already passed—Probable motives to the repentance of
Judas—Time and place of what passed between him and the
council—Purchase of the potter's field, with the thirty pieces of
silver—Aceldama of St. Matthew, different from the Aceldama of St.
Peter in the Acts—Suicide of Judas—Proper sense of ἀπάγξασθαι----
Field purchased by Judas, before his death—Prophecy of Zechariah,
when fulfilled—Sites of these Aceldamas distinct ...... 217—220
Proceedings before Pilate— Point of time, in the course of these pro-
ceedings, when Jesus was not yet examined by Pilate pro tribunali, -
and after which he was—St. John’s accounts confined to the
former, those of the other three to the latter—Inductive proof of this
conclusion, in the detail of proceedings in St. John .. . .221—225
Forensic phrases, βῆμα, and καθίσαι ἐπὶ βήματος: tribunal, and sedere, or
considere pro tribunali—Tribunals of the magistrates of Rome,
placed on paved floors—Pavimenta and Lithostrota—Lithostro-
tum in St. John, distinct from the Lithostrotum in the temple,
alludedi te’ by 'Josepetis τ τη as, bit v rie, 2 225—228
Point of time, when Pilate was now assuming the tribunal—Sixth
THE CONTENTS. ΧΙΧ
hour in St. John, and various reading of the third instead—Sup-
posed autograph of St. John’s Gospel, in the time of the Paschal
Chronicon—Our Lord crucified at the third hour, not tried—
Hours of St. John agreeable to the modern, not the ancient com-
putation—A trial before Pilate at six in the morning, no ob-
jection—Early habits of the ancients—IIlustrated by cases in
OI fe ELEC oe ον DEOS ONY HEUER 228—230
Detail of these proceedings in the first three evangelists, had begun
at this point of time—Phrase, στῆναι ἐπὶ iyendvos—Message of the
wife of Pilate—Motion of Cecina, U.C. 774—Arrangement of
the several accounts—Good confession of our Lord—First attempt
of Pilate to liberate Jesus, pro tribunali—Mission of Jesus to
Herod—Motives to it, and reconciliation of Pilate and Herod—
Place of the conclusion of the account of the proceedings before
Pilate, in St. John—Second attempt to liberate Jesus, pro tribunali
—Third and fourth attempts to liberate Jesus, pro tribunali—De-
livery up of Jesus to the will of the people—Scourging of Jesus,
preliminary to his being executed—Jesus led away to be cruci-
A ει τοῖν a ews κῶν Vs Gee oh ES. 231—237
Reasons, which might have produced the omission in the first three
evangelists, of the particulars in the above account supplied by
St. John—Uses of this supplement in St. John, to fill up or explain
tp preceding ϑουσυσδενν τ τυ OE CPT νροὲς 237--- 240
Events of the fourth division—Ayorai, or malefactors, led away with
Jesus—Number of the soldiers—Simon of Cyrene—Criminals
condemned to be crucified, carried their own crosses—Cross of our
Lord divided with Simon—Calvary or Golgotha—Tradition, re-
specting the burial place of Adam—Calvary, the common Tyburn
of Jerusalem—Christ’s suffering without the gate—Vinegar and
gall—Posca of the Roman soldiery—Shape of the cross, and form
of suspension upon it— Position of the three crosses—Title at-
tached to the cross of Jesus—The penitent and the impenitent thief
—Titles attached to crosses in general—Parting of the garments of
Jesus—Third hour of theday .................... 240—248
Particulars from the third hour to the sixth and ninth—Commenda-
tion of the Virgin by our Lord to St. John—Miraculous darkness
—Particulars from the ninth hour to the expiration of Jesus—
Moment of our Lord’s death, of his own appointing—Crucifixion
b 2
Xx THE CONTENTS.
not a speedy death—Examples of that fact—Particulars from
the expiration of Jesus, to the time of his interment—Probable an-
ticipation in St. Matthew of the account of the resurrection of
many that slept, at the expiration of Jesus—Bodies of the crucified,
not usually taken down from the cross—Blood and water from the
side of JesusPetition of Joseph of Arimatheea—Grave-clothes and
spices, at the burial of the dead .........000.00.0%% 248—254
Events of the Saturday in Passion-week—Application of the sanhe-
drim to Pilate, to set a guard over the sepulchre of Jesus—Guard
set after the expiration of the sabbath, or on the evening of Sa-
δον τ ΟΣ ρος Hae Oia TOO 255—256
DISSERTATION XLII.
On the Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection..257-320
Period comprehended by the accounts in question—Difficulties con-
nected with them, confined to the day of the resurrection... . 257
Distribution of the events of this day—Consideration of the visits to
the tomb, prior to that of the appearances of the angels—Number
STE, πὸ ΡΥ δ ρνν δ πνοὴν 257—258
Visit in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John, prima facie the same
—Visit in St. Luke, prima facie not the same—Considerations
which render it probable beforehand, that the visits to the sepul-
chre on the morning of Easter day would be distinct—Motive
ascribed to the visits of the women to the tomb, in each of the
accounts—Imperfect performance of our Lord’s funeral rites, on
the evening of Friday—Embalming among the Jews—Disem-
bowelling, whether a part of it or not—Design of a visit to the
tomb, on the morning after the sabbath, implicitly recognised in
the account of what passed at the burial—Preparation of spices by
some of the women, on the evening of Saturday—Providential effect
of our Lord's being buried on the Friday—Setting of the guard,
unknown to the disciples at the time................ 258—263
Harmony of the accounts upon the morning of Easter day, based on
the principle of a twofold visit of the women—Probable reasons,
a priori, why these parties of women should be distinct—Parties
as such, recognised in the Gospel accounts, party of Salome,
and party of Johanna—Proofs of the distinctness of these
Ῥυδδν, νυ κατά stag ll ρον WAS A ie 8 263——266
THE CONTENTS. χαὶ
Reasons, a posteriori, that the parties in question actually were dis-
tinct—Comparison of particulars of the visit in St. Matthew, with
those of the visit in St. Luke—Comparison of particulars of the
visit in St. Mark, with those of the visit in St. Luke—Com-
parison of the visit in St. Matthew and St. Mark in conjunction,
with that in St. Luke—Resulting conclusion, that the parties
wersithroughout: distinct πο τον εν ia ται ρ δι 266—273
Objection to this conclusion, from the mention of the name of Mary
Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, as well as Johanna,
in the account of St. Luke of the report of the women to the apo-
stles—Resolvable into an omission in the accounts of St. Luke,
but not an inconsistency with the above conclusion—Report of
both parties, substantially the same................ 273—275
Supplementary character of the several accounts to be taken into
consideration here—Proved by the examination of the accounts in
detail, and fact of omissions in St. Matthew supplied by St. Mark
—Scene of the account in St. Matthew, altogether placed outside
the tomb; that of the accounts in St. Mark, altogether inside the
tomb—Angel in St. Matthew, distinct from the angel in St. Mark,
and both together equivalent to the two, in St. Luke or St. John—
Objections of Celsus to the discrepancy of this part of the seve-
ral accounts—Harmony of the address of the angel to the women,
in the two accounts—Objection arising from the time of the
visit, in the accounts respectively—Tj ἐπιφωσκούσῃ, with the ellipsis
of épa—Proper sense of ὀψὲ ca88aroav—lIllustrations of the use of
ὀψέ----Ανατείλαντος Tod ἡλίου of St. Mark, and λίαν πρωΐ, not consis-
tent, if both understood of one point of time—TIpoi, the point of.
sunrise—Aiav mpai to be referred to the time when the women set out,
ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου to that of theirarrival at the sepulchre—Quarter,
whence the women would set out to the tomb — Distance of Bethany
from Calvary—Various computations of the periphery of Jerusalem
—The Bezetha or Cenopolis of Josephus—Towers on the walls
of Jerusalem, and the number of cubits between them—Line of
circumvallation, drawn about Jerusalem by Titus—Meteor in the
time of Cyril, from Calvary to Mount Olivet—Resulting con-
clusion, of the distance which the women would have to travel,
and the probable time of their arrival at the sepulchre—Precise
moment of the resurrection, probably what ..........275—287
Secondly, supplementary character of St. Luke—Implied in the dis-
b 3
vidi THE CONTENTS.
tinctness of the visits themselves, to which his account is confined
—Of distinct visits, St. Matthew or St.Mark would select the first ;
and therefore St. Luke the second ...............- 287—288
Thirdly, supplementary character of St. John—The first of his two
visits, the same with St. Matthew’s or St. Mark’s ; the second, with
the second of St. Luke’s—Double visit of Peter, a gratuitous as-
sumption—Account of this single visit in each of the evangelists,
consistent the one with the other................. . 288—289
Relation of the account of the visit of Mary Magdalene in St. John, to
that of the visit of Salome and Mary in St. Matthew and St. Mark
—Internal evidence, that Mary of Magdala accompanied the other
two on the way to the tomb—Nature of the approach to the tomb
—Site of the holy sepulchre—Mary of Magdala sent back from the
party, before their arrival at the tomb—Improbable in the highest
degree, that she could have been a party to what afterwards passed
at the tomb—Both parties of women departed again, before Mary’s
return with Peter and John—No objection, that the visit of Peter,
which arose out of the report of Mary in particular, is said by
St. Luke to have arisen out of the report of the women in general
—Supplementary object of St. John’s Gospel in this part of its
accounts, our Lord’s personal manifestation to Mary of Magdala,
and the circumstances out of which it arose .......... 289—295
Manifestations of our Lord, necessarily connected with the farther
decision of these questions—Difficulty on this subject due to
what—Number and order of these manifestations—First manifes-
tation of Jesus alive again, made to Mary of Magdala, and to
Mary by herself—Manifestation to Mary, entirely distinct from the
manifestation to the women in St. Matthew—Manifestation to
the women in St. Matthew, if not the first on Easter Day, not a
manifestation on Easter Day at all—No room for the manifestation
to the women in St. Matthew, before or after the other recorded
appearances on Easter Day—Rule of proceeding, in the order of
these manifestations—No personal appearance of Jesus to the
women known to Cleopas and his companion, before their depar-
ture to Emmaus—Report of one or both parties of the women, of
the visit to the tomb, known to them....... bdmtkgien ws 295-300
Second appearance on Easter Day, the appearance to the two disci-
ples—Manifestations in St. Matthew, both referred to one and the
THE CONTENTS. XxIl
same final end, the account of the manifestation in Galilee—
Steps in his Gospel, which gradually prepare the way for this ac-
count at last—Peculiarity of the manifestation itself, especially
considered as the manifestation alluded to by St. Paul, and made
to more than 500 at once—Resulting conclusion of the time,
when a message, to prepare the way for such a manifestation as
this, would be sent—Message not yet received, while the apostles
were still in Jerusalem—Apostles in Jerusalem, a week at least
after Easter Day—Motions of the apostles after the resurrection,
in going to and from Jerusalem, specially directed by our Lord him-
RU i ee an ee a os Nee ΑΜΟ 300-307
Objections to the above explanation: first, in the words, ὡς ἐπο-
ρεύοντο ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ. Matth. xxviii. g—Difficulty
of supposing these words always a part of St. Matthew’s Gospel
—Marked in Griesbach, with the note of probably to be omitted—
Wanting in the oldest MSS. and versions—Not known to the
Fathers of the first five centuries: proved by quotations of the
text without them—Interpolation itself, probably made at
ΝΜ ΤΕ ΔΕ ce ter hee aeRO
Objection to the same explanation, secondly, in the place of Mat-
thew xxviii. 1 1—15—Answer to the objection, by supposing that
account a Trajection—Reasons which might have produced the
WO Peek tee err ee eT Petia 310—312
Harmonized detail of the accounts of the resurrection in general,
agreeably to the principles thus laid down—Hour of ἄριστον, or
prandium, with the ancients in general, or Jews in particular—
Name of the companion of Cleopas—Appearance to Peter, con-
firmed by 1 Cor. xv. 5—Appearance to the Eleven, confirmed by
1 Cor. xv. 5—Appearance in Galilee, confirmed by 1 Cor, xv. 5—
Τὸ ὄρος, traditionally Tabor—Probably the mountain near Caper-
naum—Appearance to James, 1 Cor. xv. 7—Conjectural object
of it, to admonish the apostles to return to Jerusalem—Account of
this appearance, in the Gospel according to the Hebrews—Appear-
ance on Ascension Day, confirmed by 1 Cor. xv. 7—Harmony of the
accounts of that appearance—Jewish and Julian date of Ascension
day—Interval between the Ascension and the day of Pentecost-—
Conclusion of St. Mark’s Gospel.........,.......... 312-320
b 4
“XXIV THE CONTENTS.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION I.
On the Supplemental relations of the Gospels ....... 321—326
Objection to the supposed supplemental relation of the Gospels to
each other, from the apparent continuity of each considered by it-
πο es ak beet cs bess Cake eo oa ees dka eee r eae 321
One Gospel discovered to be defective, and another supplementary to
it, from the comparison of parallel accounts, agreeing in the out-
line throughout, and touching on each other repeatedly at interme-
Gist Bouts Or τὸν Gets. 2. OSS Ὁ Ὁ 322—325
The matter interposed in such cases, unless it can be shewn not to
be fresh matter, or to be inserted out of its place, necessarily
ΝΥ RE aC RIA εν τ ae la a IL SS at | 325—326
DISSERTATION II.
On the principle of Classification as applied to St. Luke’s
NI sid janes cheb ier ΤΟΎΤΟ 1 ΨΟΡΟΊΝΙ ΣΟ ἘΠΕ ἈΓΕΝΕΨ ΣΝ 227 --- 233
The best confutation of the supposed classification in question, sup-
plied by an harmony of the Gospels itself................ 327
The classification proposed, in assuming that St. Luke’s Gospel is
irregular, founded in ἃ petitio principii—No such classification ap-
plicable to a Gospel, both regular in itself and supplementary to
ΕΝ ts dca ce ba eet eee ce cee es Pet Ee 328—329
The principle of this classification, too artificial for the simplicity of
Gospel historians—Suetonius’ Lives of the Casars, no case in
point to the composition of a Gospel history ........ 329—330
Implied basis of this classification, the agreement of the things brought
together, in the possession of some common nature... . 330-331
Not a single instance in the Gospel of St. Luke, of distinct events
brought together on any such principle. ............ 331—332
What kind of arrangement of events might have been expected, in a
Gospel constructed on such a principle ............ 33 2—333
' THE CONTENTS. XXV
Peculiarity of narration, which does distinguish the Gospel of St.
Luke, although not exclusively, what............... 00005 333
DISSERTATION III.
On the prevalence of the Greek language in Palestine, or
οὐ ἀν OF the ΟΝ cc ccc accstosceceycopecensvsucess 334—350
Connection of this inquiry with the determination of the question,
In what language it is most probable St. Matthew’s Gospel was
Co AE DE SELLING) ie hE PAA op OL RE OS PPE A 334
Testimony of Chemilas-- Rapk of Ecclesiasticus—Second of Macca-
bees—Dialect of Ashdod or Azotus—Book of Enoch .. 334—336
Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew—Hebrew versions of the Gospel of
St. John and the Acts of the Apostles—Gospel of Nicode-
ENERO ALINE 1, SE SN ae 4 PSD EO, eee SE τὰ ὁ 330—337
Hebrew words or phrases in the Gospel, or elsewhere—Vernacular
Hebrew, distinct from the language of the Jews of the dispersion
—Language of the native Jews in the time of Vespasian and
RMR es SO Le PE CEPR MS ERs eee hee SL mee 337—338
Hebrew forms of prayer—Hebrew, of the juggler Alexander—In the
time of Cleopatra—Of Gordian the younger .............. 338
Hebrew or Syriac, in the time of Origen—Of Eusebius—Letters be-
tween Christ and Abgarus—Syriac or Hebrew, in the time of Je-
rome—Of Ambrose and Chrysostom—Of Theodorit—Of Sozo-
men—Epigram of Meleager of Gadara—Severianus of Gabala—
Bardesanes Syrus—Harmodius—Ephraim Syrus...... 338—341
Mapava6é—Herod Agrippa and the Alexandrine populace—Mdgus,
Madxav, Malchus, or Porphyry .......... 0.020002 0c ee ee 341
Languages spoken by Mithridates—Languages spoken at Dioscurias
—Dialect of Mysia—Cappadocia—Hispania Betica—Phrygia—
Gaul—Corsica— Africa or Punic.................. 342—344
Greek language extinguished in some instances by native dialects—
ΧΧΨΥΙ THE CONTENTS.
Pestum—aAcheans on the Pontus—Tomos, Thessalonica—Aristi-
des, and the Attic dialect <li s yi! ajsieb sig 0,006 ἀν jovertid 344—345
Native dialects in Egypt, Syria, and Upper Asia—Dialect of Egypt—
Hieroglyphica of Horapollo—Language of Parthia or Armenia—
Of Palmyra—Disputation of Archelaus and Manes—Apollonius of
Tyana—Aristides—Dio Chrysostom—A#lian ........ 345—347
Use of interpreters, to translate Latin into other languages—Titus—
Paulus Z.milius—Constantine—Trajan—T iridates—Latin, the state
or official language under the empire—General, in the time of Plu-
tarch—Circular letter of Constantine—Council of Antioch, Ser-
dica, Sirmium—Photinus— Greek secretary of the emperors—
Pulcheria—Estimation of Greek among the Romans, in compari-
Πρ OF TRIER o's 55 Sia wck hn gies Mae ea ὙΠΠ 347—349
Πόλεις “Ἑλληνίδες, or gentile cities in Josephus—The language spoken
in these, no argument of what would be spoken in the rest of Pa-
Mo oie Pky ease Se a valee ho fae SS 349-350
DISSERTATION IV.
On the reigns and succession of the Maccubean Princes.
- 351—355
Reigns of the Maccabees, from the first of Judas to the death of Si-’
mon, or the close of the First of Maccabees............... 351
Reigns of the Maccabees, from the first year of John Hyrcanus to the
ἐμοῦ ὁ quebn-AlemanG@rB) 0 |ὲ 0 ἰνῶν hha eons 352—353
Chronology of the rest of the period, from the accession of Hyrcanus
the second to the end of the Maccabean dynasty.......... 353
Misstatement of Josephus, with respect to the first year of Hyrcanus’
ΝΟΥ τον 3: oy. v's 99 00 2 κυ» NORE ee a Gan ζῶν 354
Distribution of the period, from B.C. 63. to B.C. 37, between Hyr-
Danii and ATOR. is δὸ ων νι ρλαις EE shir ordi 354—355
THE CONTENTS. XXV1l
DISSERTATION V.
On the time of the admission of Caius Cesar to the Councils
OF MU UBL 6650s. y dn yaqig ona cescsnathsss quereaseyscopor 356—361
Age at which, according to the Ancyran monument of Dio Cassius,
Caius and Lucius Cesar were privileged to be present at the pub-
SU MOURNED, cas fis ncn ex od ak eats μετ, apse δεν ae ἐν 6 0 356—357
Language of Josephus, with respect to the presence of Caius at the
deliberation on the will of Herod, whether for the first time or in
δου CORRE ἐν ii BOK. inate καμμιὰν So - 357—358
Age of young men at the assumption of the Toga Libera, under the
republic, and in the time of the emperors ..........358—359
Time of the year with which this ceremony coincided, the Libera-
MRS OD ete esas Me Gs Gils bis Shae 6d bs wre crores 359
Time of the ceremony, in the case of Caius and Lucius Cesar 359-360
Whether Josephus, in his mention of the persons present at the
council on the will of Herod, has confounded Caius with Lucius
SE ee Re hss OF A obs cleo scons ce eae dt 360
Objection hence derivable, to the supposition of this council’s ; being
held, and Herod's having died, U. C. 752................ 361
DISSERTATION VI.
On the date ofthe Marriageof Archelaus andGlaphyra..36 2-37 3
Glaphyra, after the death of Juba, married to Archelaus........ 362
Extant fragments of Juba—Supply no data to determine the year of
νὰ δ ὃ ELV VOPR GAA. τον ρον 362— 363
Work of Juba upon Arabia, demonstrative that he was not dead be-
fore Caius Cesar’s expedition into the East—Date of that expedi-
CHR TS OUT FEO) Seb, gee to MESES eg), 363—364
TOO MEG oe ee ee ΘΕΙ͂Ν NE AA SONS EN BOP Τὴ ἐς Gy
Coins of the kings of Mauritania—Length of the reign of Juba
‘XXVill THE CONTENTS.
thence determinable—Dominions of Juba—-Death of Juba the
elder, and Bocchus king of Mauritania—Marriage of Juba to
Cleopatra—Epigram of Crinagoras ................ 364—365
Date of Eckhel for the first year of Juba, inconsistent with Jose-
phus’ testimony to the time when he was dead—Josephus con-
firmed by a coin of Ptolemy, son of Juba .......... 365—366
Language of Strabo, that Juba was lately dead when he was writing—
Determination of the age of Strabo................ 366—367
Language of Strabo, not to be too strictly construed, more especially
with respect to the dates of contemporary ὀνδηνθ, νὰ 367—368
Reign of Juba, best supposed to bear date from the death of his
father, U.C. 708—Year of his death thence determinable, from his
coins, not before USC. 75670 a. es ca es hope GOCr ROO
Coins of Ptolemy his son, which serve to shew that Juba died and
Ptolemy began to reign, U.C.759—-Cesarea, or games instituted by
Juba—Personal history of Ptolemy—The son of Juba, and Cleo-
patra or Selene—Put to death by Caius, U. C. 793—Rebellion in
Mauritania, excited by his death .................. 369—371
Earliest possible date of the marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra,
resulting from these premises ...................-- 371—372
Probable age of Glaphyra at the time—Glaphyra, daughter of Arche-
laus king of Cappadocia, and Glaphyra—Appointment of Archelaus
to that kingdom—NMarriage of Archelaus to Pythodoris—Date of
the death of Polemo king of Pontus—Polemo the second, contem-
μά WIG το DiGi 65 0502 θεν» ὥς. ONO a ek κ 372—373
DISSERTATION VII.
Onthe Date of the Proconsular Authority of Tiberius...374—381
Date of the triumph of Tiberius, and of his consequent association
in the empire, capable of being confirmed from Ovid’s Tristia and
BO οὐ ον ον ee ce 645 πίω. ἐλ aR 374
Date of the banishment of Ovid, and order of his compositions written
mite Set BVENE ie Mi isis de eos aint “ho ccesed oe 374—377
THE CONTENTS. xxix
Rule of Ovid, to date the years of his exile from the winter season...375
Place of the first allusion to the triumph of Tiberius, in the Epistole
Oe RON Fk Ks pe WE ee ea es bE ee hae 377
Celebration of this in the Triumphus of Ovid.......... 377—378
Distinction of this triumph from that of Germanicus.......... 378
This triumph also known to Ovid....... PPO ES ..-378—379
Allusions in the Tristia to the war in Germany, U.C. 762—
Lines of Ovid, upon the statues of Augustus, Tiberius, and Li-
WR sci ες ἐν, κε ως, ea a 379—380
Illustration from the Epistole de Ponto, of the fact of Germanicus’
being recommended by Augustus to the senate, and the senate to
Tiberias ics hi sn’: ab per DURE Jee eG Ns 480
Pomponius Flaccus, and his government in the vicinity of Ovid, con-
sistent with his being at Rome U. C. 765—Propretor of Meesia,
under 'Tiberius—Rhescuporis—Cotys .............. 380—381
DISSERTATION VIII.
The rate of travelling by sea or land, in ancient times, allus-
Sretted by Fmanagee τους Finca edie ee Rees see 382—393
Examples, to prove that one who set out from Rome, even on the
first of June, would not arrive in Judea before the beginning or
Serene OF AURONE TSS SiS ee ee eee ee cae et 382—384
Examples of the greater delays of travelling in the winter sea-
eli oa ad ARE ERE (Pia ISPS Νουα spr wien te yt 384—385
General examples of the rate of travelling both in summer and in
ΒΗ 51 anilingus bea baal babes 385—388
Additional examples to the same effect .............. 388—391
Particular proof of the assertion that the journey from Judza to Rome,
even in the summer, would take up six weeks at least ...391—393
XXX THE CONTENTS.
DISSERTATION IX.
On the natural or physical Notices of Time, supplied by the
Gospel Histories ...cscseceeeeesveccncecseeceeneseeses. 394—412
Advantages of natural phenomena, to supply the defect of historical
notices of time, illustrated by cases in‘ point—Simplicity and anti-
quity of the division of the chronology of events into summers
and winters—Object proposed, in the application of this principle
to the chronology of the Gospel history ............ 394—396
Natural notices of the first spring, supplied by the Gospel his-
RES seb asinine serrate \gtalenienarate se Wa" ae 396—398
τ ΤΟ Tee re ea te cn 398
Objection to this last conclusion answered—Peculiarity of the climate
of Judea, with respect to pasturage—Season of rain in Judea,
what—Failure of the supplies of water, in the summer season—
Periodic visitations of the locust—Use of straw or stubble, in the
fodder of cattle—Limits within which supplies of green food
might be had for the cattle—Not the effect of the autumnal rains
to revive the face of the ground—Absurdity of supposing the first
miracle of feeding, in the autumnal quarter before Passion-week—
Winter in Judea, inconsistent with the Gospel description of the
circumstances of that miracle .................... 398—405
Natural notice of the first harvest, supplied by the Gospel history—
Times of barley harvest and wheat harvest in Judea, respectively—
Book of Enoch—Philo Judeus .................. 405—406
Interval between this notice, and the two last—Absurdity of the only
conceivable method of abridging it ................ 406—408
Natural notice of the second harvest supplied by the Gospel his-
tory—Literal construction of this allusion—Distinction of this
harvest from the last—Absurdity of supposing the one barley har-
vest and the other wheat harvest in the same year i... 408—4 10
Summing up of the argument—Minimum of the length of our
Saviour’s ministry determined by it—Necessary disproof of the
THE CONTENTS. ΧΧΧῚ
hypothesis of a one year’s ministry, by it—Coincidence of the con-
clusion thus established with others, independently obtained, to the
τ’, 8 a es a a awk 41I—412
DISSERTATION X.
On the time of the imprisonment of John the Baptist, and of —
the marriage of Herod and Herodias ............... 413—429
Date of the marriage in question, not coincident with that of the war
of Herod and Aretas—-Defeat of Herod by Aretas—Death of
Philip the tetrarch—Imprisonment of John at Macherus—Escape
of the daughter of Aretas thither .................. 412—414
Salome, daughter of Herodias—Her age at the death of John—Age
of marriage in females anciently—Marriage of Herodias to her
Gest husband Voarod iia nic dvd ok eansinks ob ἀν ον 415—417
History of Herod Agrippa, between the death of Drusus, son of Tibe-
rius, and his last return to Rome, before the death of Tiberius
—Herod Antipas and Herodias already married, at what
eh a. soca em at ame Meads αν dead 4a sade | 417—418
Statement of Josephus of the time of this return, before the death
of Tiberius—Intermediate history of Agrippa, between leaving Ti-
berias and returning to Rome—Death of Flaccus, governor of
Syria—Vitellius, his successor ..........-. eee eens 418—419
Between what times Tiberius might be found at Capree, by Agrippa,
at his return—Movements of ‘Tiberius, between the death of Se-
janus and his own decease—Prefects of the city—Piso, Alius
Lamia, Cossus, Sanquinius Maximus—Trial of Eutychus—Im-
pehaionaattt 00 λνΝ.) κῶν Sek ee esas One 419—421
Journey of Herod the tetrarch to Rome, before his marriage to He-
rodias—Date of the foundation of Tiberias—Time of the year of
his departure—Compact with Herodias—Compact known to John
—Espousals among the Jews, equivalent to marriage— Message of
John, preliminary to his imprisonment—Resulting date of this
ΠΥ τ dc A nese wines ts alae ΗΝ ΤΈΡΕΝ Roache Aue dims 420—424
Marriage delayed by the remonstrances of John—Enmity of Hero-
dias to John—Time of the death of John—Nature of the feast
xxx THE CONTENTS.
celebrating by Herod at the time—A king’s accession, his birth-
δ POOR SS eS ne cee ee ee eee 424—425,
Chronological arrangement of the preceding particulars—Visit of
Herod Antipas to Tyre—Agrippa not at Jerusalem, at the time of
the dedication of the shields by Pilate—Obscurity of the accounts
of Josephus, with respect to these events, probably designed—Tra-
dition, that the body of John was buried in Sebaste—Traditionary
account of the disposal of the head of John.......... 425—427
Name of Herodias’ first husband—Philip, probably an interpolation
in the Gospel text—Time, when Herod Antipas was most likely to
Hear UAL OF νυν. Se ak es ἈΝ ον νὰ bes caee’s 428—429
DISSERTATION XI.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover..430-481
Coincidence of the date of the Nativity with the date of the Crea-
tion, and that of both with the Vernal Equinox ...... 430—431
Vernal Equinox, in the year of the Nativity—Precession of the Equi-
nox, and rate of precession—April 5 the Vernal Equinox, B.C.
1560—B. C. 1560, the year of the Exodus—Proof of this position,
a priori, by tracing the course of events from the Creation to the
ΠΥ AP υδέχδις νι Sore ae Ὡς τὴ 431—434
Hebrew and Septuagint chronology—Tradition that the world was
destined to last six thousand years—Division of millennia, ac-
cording to the prophecy of Enoch or Elias—Coincidence of the
Bible date of the birth of Christ with the close of the fourth mil-
lennium—Doctrine of the millenary reign, connected with this divi-
sion of millennia—Scriptural sense of αἰὼν, or αἰῶνες... .. 434-437
Interval between the call of Abraham and the birth of Christ—Call of
Abraham, dated from the call into Charran—Interval between the
call into Canaan, and the Exodus—Interval between the call into
Charran and the call into Canaan—Interval between the Creation
and the call into Charran—Age of Terah, at the birth of his three
sons—Abraham, ‘Terah’s second son—Age of Terah, αἵ his
ΡΝ, Bi it Eri aR ie aT gay rns, Pee tee eg 437—442
THE CONTENTS. XXxill
Proof that B.C. 1560 was the year of the Exodus, a posteriori, by
tracing the course of events from the Exodus to the time of the
νάνι of the’ temple: . 62 2. Fee αφού, Ἐς he a DE 442
Date of the Exodus—Date of the division of the lands—Age of
CMO as hss wis τὰ the Che oe op HR hina ah 443—444
᾿Αρχὴ of the cycle of Sabbatic years—’Apx7 of the cycle of years of
NR ral do x chee dnd dia Ct by ks te νοι 444—445
Date of the death of Joshua—Interval between the Eisodus and the
time of Jephthah—lInterval between the time of Jephthah and the
ΟΝ ρον ΗΝ dimmed} asin wae 445—446
Interval between the death of Eli and the end of the reign of David
—Length of the administration of Samuel—Length of the reign of
Saul—St. Paul’s definition of the interval, in the synagogue of
ἘΝ AM AF iki νυν, this sos oes bk οὐ, ORF 4.50
Position of the last chapter of the Book of Judges............ 449
Date of the building of the temple—Peculiarity of this date in the
age of the world—Temple, a type of the body of Christ—Temple
of Ezekiel—Coincidences observable in the history of the first and
I PII oe oc ait oy cia b> dine I ADT Ὡς 450—452
General accuracy of the Bible chronology, in the reigns of the kings
of Israel and Judah, proved by the correctness of the date of the
fourteenth of Hezekiah—Sabbatic year, in the fourteenth of Heze-
kiah—Sum of the reigns of the kings of Judah, from Solomon to
the captivity—Allowance for current years, reckoned as com-
ME Bs his νων νὰ Se 452—454
Date of the building of the temple, in the First of Kings—Explained,
by referring it to the commencement of the administration of the
Judges—First year of Othniel—Date of the death of the last of
the elders who outlived Joshua—Interval from that time to the
time of Jephthah—The last year of a particular servitude, reckoned
as the first of the deliverance from it—Age of Othniel at his death
—Various readings of the numbers in Kings—Generations between
the death of Joshua and the accession of David—Passage | of.
VOL. III. ὃ
XXXIV THE CONTENTS.
the high priesthood from the line of Phinehas unto that of
ΝΗ τ eee ee eas ἘΌΝ SE REECE τ 454—458
Calculation of Vernal Equinoxes—True date of the Vernal Equinox
in the year of the Nativity, and consequent date in the year of
the Mxodus, answering τ. ΕΑΝ της, 458—459
April 5 in the Julian year, equivalent to April 3 in the Tropical or
natural—Correction of the civil year by Casar—Erroneous as-
sumption of the length of the natural year—Erroneous determina-
tion of the cardinal points in the Julian year, by Sosigenes—Per-
petuation of his error in the modern Julian year—Correction of
the calendar by pope Gregory, and ‘its object—Vernal Equinox, at
the time of the council of Nice—Eclipses above quoted, calculated
in dates of the Gregorian year—Adaptation of these dates to the —
corresponding dates in the natural—Calculation of the eclipse
before the Nativity, by Mr. Jenkyns—April 3, B. C. 4, the
date of the Nativity, as well as of the Vernal Equinox, B.C.
ἘΝ aie a ries a's ea aS ano ον apie ae αν et 459—464
Proof that April 3 or April 5, B. C. 1560, coincided with the seventh
day of the week, as April 3 or April 5 did in the year of the
Nativity—Date of the passage of the Red sea—Date of the supply
of quails, and of the first of the sabbaths—-The tenth of Nisan, or
pies, ἃ Saturday τ a ΒΕΦΩΣ 464—467
Confirmation of the above conclusions, by the succession of νυχθή-
pepa from A.M. 1 to the Exodus—Mean length of the natural year—
B. C. 4004, a great astronomical epoch—Date of the Vernal Equi-
nox, Β. C. 4004—Number of νυχθήμερα and weeks, from thence to
tlic Taxol ον PL ERO, PE SO PT ΌΗΝ 467—469
Application of the same computation, from A.M. 1 to the year of the
Nativity—Mean length of the natural year, according to Delambre
—Rate of precession, answerable thereto—Discrepancy of one day,
between the calculated result, and the fact established that B.C. 4,
April 3, or April 5 was a Saturday—This discrepancy explained, by
taking into account the effect of the miracles in the time of Heze-
πα σοι 030 AAT AOE. HIG, Sati 469—475
Date of the first of the Levitical passovers, and place in the days of
THE CONTENTS: XXXV
the week, the year after the Exodus, the same as at the time of
the Exodus—Passover capable of being celebrated, B. C. 1559, on
March 30—Calculation of the full moon, B.C. 1559—Date of
the erection of the tabernacle—Date of the commencement of the
tabernacle service—Date of the supply of quails—Date of the
full moon, the year of the Exodus—Neomenia of Nisan, in the year
of the Eisodus, the Vernal Equinox; and both coincident with the
μιά ob theiwecdlerin si sinis li die susesids wits, auton 475—481
DISSERTATION ΧΗ.
On the Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and of Israel.
482—546
Table of the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel, from the first
of Solomon to the fourteenth of Hezekiah ..........482—483
Table of the reigns of the kings of Judah, from the fourteenth of
Hezekiah to the eleventh of Zedekiah.............. 483—484
Double date of the beginnings of the reigns in question—Length of
the reigns in each instance referred to a nominal adpyn—Synchron-
isms of one reign with another referred to the true.......... 484
Inductive proof of the fact of this distinction, through each of the
reigns in succession—Numeral notes at 2 Chron. xv. 19. xvi. I—
Interregnum between Elah and Omri—Death of Ahab. . 484—487
First of Ahaziah king of Israel, the nineteenth of Jehoshaphat—
Corruption of nineteen for seventeen—Association of the sons of
the kings of Israel or Judah with their fathers, in their lifetime, a
EMRE CEVEMMNONES. oa ee Sakis coe μονα 8 oy 8 ge * 488—489
First of Jehoram, king of Israel, the twentieth of Jehoshaphat—
Interpolation of 2 Kings i. 17—-Cases of interpolation, in other
instances—First of Ahaziah king of Judah, the twelfth of Jeho-
Yat Kile OP teraer. es PPO 4B egg
First of Jehu and first of Athaliah— Corruption of the numeral note
at 2 Kings ΧΙ]. 10, and 2 Kings xv. 1—Interregnum of twelve
years in the succession of the kings of Judah, between Amaziah
and Uzziah, a gratuitous hypothesis................ 492—494
First of Zachariah—Interregnum of twelve years in the kingdom
ca
or THE CONTENTS.
of Israel—Twentieth of Pekah, the third of Ahaz—Interpolation
ofa Rings ἔν 46 Ὁ ΘΙ ΟΝ a 494—496
Invasion of Judah by Rezin and Pekah—Birth of Maher-shalal-
hash-baz—Reduction of Samaria and Damascus by Tiglath-pile-
Mb 6} GREE OS Pi Soe FR Oe 2 PE UE Δι 496—497
First of Hoshea, the thirteenth of Ahaz—lInterregnum of nine years
in the kingdom of Israel—Various readings of the reign of Pekah
—Capture of Samaria, and extinction of the kingdom of Is-
BOO τς Woes κυνί ἐνδεῶς, (xo anaes 497—498
Fourteenth of Hezekiah—Invasion of Sennacherib—Date of the
fifteen years, added to his life—Embassy of the king of Babylon—
—Merodach-baladan, the Mardoc-empadus of Ptolemy’s ca-
OE ERG Te EEO re ee ery ee 498—500
‘First of Josiah, and last of Josiah—lInvasion of Pharaoh-Necho—
First of Jehoiakim—lInterval from the thirteenth of Josiah to the
fourth of Jehoiakim, according to Jeremiah.......... 500—502
First of Nebuchadnezzar, the third of Jehoiakim—Three months of
Jehoiachin in the eighth of Nebuchadnezzar—Death of Jehoiakim
— ἀρχὴ of the reign of Zedekiah—Ezekiel’s date of the captivity—
Thirtieth year of Ezekiel—Probable corruption of Ezekiel i. 1—
First of Zedekiah, ninth of Nebuchadnezzar—Eleventh of Zede-
kiah, nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar—Date of the destruction of
the temple and Jerusalem—Synchronism at Ezekiel xl.1.,..502-505
First of Nebuchadnezzar, according to Jeremiah—Date of his capti-
vity, according to Daniel—True date of the ἀρχὴ of the seventy
years’ captivity—Subsequent captivities besides the first—Length
of the captivity seventy years. ..... 6%. .a Wen lee epee 505—506
First of Nebuchadnezzar, the third of Daniel’s captivity—Recon-
ciliation of this date with that of Jeremiah—Reign of Nebuchad-
nezzar, represented at forty-five years and at forty-three, respect-
ively—Length of his reign, forty-five years according to scripture
—Siege of Tyre—Reduction of Egypt—Madness of Nebuchad-
nezzar—Nebuchadnezzar associated with his father . .. 506—s508
Canon of Ptolemy—First of Evil-merodach—Evil-merodach the
THE CONTENTS. XXXVI
same with Belshazzar—Neriglissar—Laborosoarchod—Isaiah xiv.
29—Nabonadius, no connection of the family of Nebuchadnezzar
—Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar—Book of Baruch—
Reign of Evil-merodach and Belshazzar, according to the canon,
and according to Daniel—Testimony of Daniel v. 30, 31——Daniel
x. 13—Prince of Persia and Grecia—Twenty-one years between
the death of Belshazzar, and the accession of Darius at Babylon—
The same, in the canon, between Evil-merodach and Nabonadius
—Years of Darius at Babylon in the canon, merged in those of
ΛΗ ἀν ἐμ» UR ἀφ νος Si enlaces Ἢ 508—sI15
Various circumstantial proofs of the truth of the above conclusions
_ —Feast of Belshazzar, in a time of peace—Sacea at Babylon—
The queen-mother, or wife of Nebuchadnezzar—King of Baby-
lon, at the time of its capture by Cyrus, not killed—Various
accounts of the capture of Babylon—Daniel survived the captivity
—Age of Daniel at the return of the Jews .......... 515—518
Darius the Mede, Cyaxares—Ahasuerus, or Assuerus, Astyages—
Book of Tobit—Siege of Nineve—Age of Tobit, when he lost his
sight—Last of Sennacherib, and first of Esarhaddon—Death of
Tobit, and siege of Nineve—Length of the siege—Nebuchad-
nezzar or Nabuchodonosor, commander at it—Expedition of
Pharaoh-Necho—Nebuchadnezzar, contemporary with Astyages—
Chronology of the reign of Cyaxares, king of Media—Scythian
invasion of Asia—Astyages, commanding for Cyaxares at the
siege of Nineve—Cyaxares, or Darius the Mede, the cousin of
Evil-merodach—Amyhea, wife of Nebuchadnezzar—Marriage of
Aryenis to Astyages—LEclipse of Thales—Birth of Cyaxares, or
Darius the Mede—Birth of Croesus—Birth of Cyrus—Age of Cyrus
at his death—Evil-merodach, Cyaxares, Croesus, Cyrus, strictly ὁμή-
Auxes—Marriageable age in the East .............. 518—5 27
Ezekiel iv. 5, 6—Various readings of the numbers in those texts—
End of the numbers, and beginning answerable to it—B.C. 1018,
the year of the numbering in the reign of David—z2 Sam. xxiv.
13, and 1 Chron. xxi. 12—B. C. 1017, a sabbatic year...527—530
Chronology of the latter half of the reign of David—Age of Solo-
mon, when he came to the throne—Death of Amon—Return of
Absalom—2 Samuel xv. 7, 8—Death of Absalomn—Three years’
C3
Sev THE CONTENTS.
famine—Children of Absalom—Age of Mephibosheth, at the re-
ΡΝ OF δῆ ΠΕΣ ee ἘᾺΝ ney 530—533
Coincidences of Egyptian with sacred history—Pharaoh-Necho—
Pharaoh-Hophra—Seventy years’ captivity of Tyre—Siege of ‘Tyre
by Nebuchadnezzar—lIonian war—Forty years’ desolation of
Egypt—Reduction of Egypt by Cyrus..............534-—-535
Length of the reign of Saul—Age of Ishbosheth—Children of Saul —
—Age of Jonathan at his death—Age of Saul, when he began to
ys yes ven ta > EAT ee ew Rig. Kio ala σον Εν
Testimony of 1 Sam. xiii. 1, 2—Difficulties connected with its literal
construction—Limits of the military age anciently .... 537—538
Explanation of the above texts—Statement of Josephus, that Samuel
died in the eighteenth of Saul—True date of the death of Samuel—
First eighteen years of Saul, part also of the administration of
Samuel—Birth of Samuel—Age, when he succeeded Eli—Age, in
the eighteenth of Saul—Date of the sole reign of Saul...5 39—5 42
Advantages of this explanation—Birth of Jonathan—Birth of David
—Friendship of David and Jonathan—Age of David, when anoint-
ed by Samuel—Age, when he slew Goliath—Subjugation of the
Philistines in the days of Samuel—Descendants of Eli. from
Phinehas to Abiathar—Date of the death of Samuel—Tradition-
ary length of the reign of Saul—The 450 years’ date of St.
PRR ra ere. Ce STR EEO nee ee heron ee mee 542—546
SUPPLEMENT TO DISSERTATION XII.
Further consideration of Daniel x.13 .............. ..547 --- 584
Supposed reference of Daniel χ. 13 to x. 2, and apparent probability
ΝΡ a aye ρει we a vig lk ge ἡ Re
Answer to the objection—Equally probable at first sight of Daniel
ix. 1, 2—Inconsistent with the circumstances of the case, and the
dignity of the parties who appeared unto Daniel, or are alluded
to in this instance—The second Person in the Trinity—The
Prince of the kingdom of Persia—Gabriel—Michael—Partly re-
solvable into the inaccuracy, and prima facie construction of the
EM ον SS ees ρει 6 a ss με 3 eS 548—551
| THE CONTENTS. XXX1X
Tenth chapter of Daniel, historical or recapitulatory throughout—
Specially connected with the eighth—Division of the Book of
Daniel into the historical and prophetical parts—Limits of each—
Chronological series of his visions as such, from the first of Bel-
shazzar to the third of Cyrus—Interposition of the prophecy of
- thé’ seventy: weeks). :34./.gsib a Me tinder otis Ours φᾷ 551 —553
Reference of the vision in the tenth, to the vision in the eighth—
Instrument employed to interpret the visions of Daniel, the angel
Gabriel— Phelamouni, or Palmoni, descriptive of what...553—556
Confirmation of this conclusion—Daniel’s setting his heart to under-
stand, the understanding of his visions—Daniel in Persia at the
vision, chap. vili. 2, &c.—Ullai, the Eulzeus—Daniel on the Tigris at
x. i. 4—Angel, to return to Persia after the vision—Strengthening
of Darius by the angel, in the first of his reign........ 550—559
The tenth chapter of Daniel historical throughout—Amended version
of Dan. x. 12—14. 20 to xi.2—Parenthetic character of parts of these
—Coming of the prince of Javan or Grecia—Strengthening of
Darius by Gabriel—Keturn, to war with the prince of Per-
Md + tintenites ate ον σον δούς Shlivatedgoenig. as 559-563
One and twenty days began in the third of Belshazzar, and expired
- in the first of Darius—Conuection of the strengthening of Darius
with the purposes of Providence in behalf of the Jews—Oppo-
sition of the prince of Persia, not over in the third of Cyrus—
Daniel's fasting and mourning, probably due to the success of the
adversaries of the Jews in the reign of Cyrus......... 563—566
Prince of Persia and prince of Grecia, designations of what—Opin-
ion of bishop Horsley with respect to both—Objections to this
explanation—Princes of Persia, not recognised in Scripture—
Prince of Persia or Grecia in Daniel, analogous to the prince of
Tyrus in Ezekiel—Hebrew designation of the prince of Persia in-
applicable to a party or faction—Anachronism involved in the
bishop's explanation—A party or faction an abstraction, the prince
of Persia a reality of some kind—The Prince of Persia, a superhu-
man being as much as Gabriel or Michael ........... 567—572
Doctrine of tutelar angels, as opposed by the bishop, not involved in
this question—Charged by the bishop with consequences to which
ς 4
xl THE CONTENTS.
it is not liable—Its truth or falsehood, to be decided by scripture
testimony alone—Order of relation and subordination, to be pre-
sumed in the invisible world, as well as the visible .. ..572—574
Doctrine of tutelar and even of individual guardian angels, resolvable
into primitive tradition—Falsely attributed to Rabbis or Gentiles—
Grounded on the Septuagint version of Deut. xxxii. 8. .574—575
Designation of the prince of Persia and Grecia, as archons or rulers,
scriptural—Styles and titles, applied by St. Paul and St. Peter to
the angels collectively—Not confined to the good, but equally ap-
Sree to We Bad ἘΣ BSP eS iis IEP LA 575—570
Relation of archon or ruling principles, over all but the people of
God upon earth, restricted to what class of angels—Proofs of this
position from the Scriptures of the New Testament—Archon of
Persia, archon of Grecia, archon of Tyre, in unison with this de-
scription—Equally so, the archon of archons, or archon of the
people of God, the archangel Michael.............. 576—580
Warfare of such principles as these upon each other, not to be ex-
plained at present—Possible, that one of its modes may be by
working upon and by men—Combination of the prince of Persia
and the prince of Grecia, against Gabriel and Michael, in the first
of Darius, a mystery—Persia and Greece, important countries in
the destinies both of the Jewish and Christian churches—Anti-
christ, whence to arise
Age of Daniel at his captivity—Age, in the third of Cyrus—Decree
of Cyrus might be dictated by Daniel—Tower at Ecbatana, re-
puted to have been built by Daniel—Tower or palace at Ach-
metha, in the Book of Ezra—Probable date of the death of Daniel
— Absolute length of time in the Book of Daniel... ... 582—584
DISSERTATION XIII.
Further Consideration of the Opinions of the most ancient
Christians upon the preceding topics .......6..0+.+- 585—642
Justin Martyr—Date of the first Apology—Birthday of Severus, and
year of the consulate of Erucius and Clarus............... 585
Notes of time in the Apology—Persons addressed in the opening
THE CONTENTS. xli
sentence—Lucius A®lius Verus Cesar—Antoninus Pius, Marcus
Aurelius, and Lucius Verus—Name of Verissimus, of Marcus Au-
δον ρος SAR AAR A UO AAT 585—587
Rescript of Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus—Prohibition of castra-
tion—Deification of Antinous—Barchochab—Second Jewish
WRK) νὴ. ast γὁ weReunia wi δι σζα, gn enews 587—5 88
Marcion of Pontus-—Age of Marcion—Age of Celsus—Martyrdom of
IRI ig iin hin Gus id bh = hale '- 9 ged) < Kia i~ κι.» αὐ 588—590
Second Apology of Justin, written when one king as such was
reigning—Second Apology possibly prior to the first. . .5g0—591
Musonius, contemporary with Justin—Musonii, before and after
Justin—Cornutus of Leptis not put to death by Nero—Persius,
the satirist—Asinius Pollio—Hermogenes of Tarsus—Musanus,
Ce NCMIMIIE WEEE πΠΠΠ τινε φεῦ δυο γον ον 591—593
Lollius Urbicus, prefect of the city—Oratio of Apuleius, De Magia—
Pudentilla—Avitus and Maximus, proconsuls of Africa—Gavius or
Cavius Maximus—Time of the proconsulate, after the consulate—
Proconsulate of Agricola—Proconsulate of Gordian the Elder—
Proconsulate of Silanus—Urbicus, governor of the Regio Veneta—
Acta of Justin—Rusticus, urbis prefectus—Junius Rusticus, pre-
δον δέμας ΚΕΝ ΟΣ Bos ero t a i) 593—597
Crescens the Cynic—Testimony of Tatian to the death of Justin—
Salaries of the sophists, rhetores, or philosophers, under the empe-
rors—Aristocles of Pergamus—Salary of Quintilian at Rome—The
Museum at Alexandria—Destruction of the Bruchium—aAi μυρίαι
or ἐπὶ pupiats—Salary in the reign of Severus ........ 597—599
Rise of the heresy of 'Tatian—Date of the martyrdom of Justin—
Me of Mon them ia cit al) aay eat 598—600
Irenzeus—Opinions of the Valentinians—lInterval between the resur-
rection and ascension, according to the Valentinians—Number of
Aions recognised by this sect—Sige and Bythus—A®ons of
Ptolemeus and Secundus—Age of Valentinus—Theudas, his
prebeptor, at: bearer Of St.‘Pawh: oo csisiies vos ov ον, 600—602
Age of our Lord at his baptism, and when he entered on his ministry,
xii THE CONTENTS.
according to Ireneeus—In what sense, admits of explanation—Per-
fect age, or age of a master, according to Ireneeus— Misconstruc-
tion of Ireneus, of John vili. 57—-Old age supposed to begin at
fifty—-Various reading of forty for fifty—-Number of passovers
supposed by! Tvenzeus’? 2205 ORS 602—606
Opinion of Irenzeus not singular—’Avrixeiveva of Stephen Gobarus—
Valentinian date of the Nativity, according to Epiphanius, placed
it in the spring—Opinion that Christ was born at seven months
old—Authority for these dates, not wanting—Syncellus—Frag-
ment ascribed to Alexander bishop of Jerusalem—Possible origin
of these misstatements—Corruption of names and numbers in Epi-
So, EI SN, De το ey 606—608
Clemens Alexandrinus—Dates of the Baptism, the Nativity, or the
Passion, all referred to the spring—Interval, according to Cle-
mens, between the death of Commodus and the birth of Christ—
Corruption of numbers, in the text of Clemens——Varronian and
Catonian reckoning of the years of the city—Date of the creation,
whether fixed by Clemens.......................+608--612
Supposed interval of forty-two years, according to Clemens, between
the Passion and the destruction of Jerusalem—Followed by Ori-
gen and Jerome—lInterval of forty years—True of no date but the
sixteenth of Tiberius—Length of our Saviour’s ministry, according
πο gs PP, oy eee, STI, Be) TS. Aa 612—614
Tertullian—Probable that Tertullian dated the Nativity in the spring—
Age of our Lord at his Passion—Exposition of the prophecy of the
ΕΟ WORK. γε ἐν Es es a Es WB is a | 614—615
Origen—Opinions of Origen at different times, of the length of our
Saviour’s ministry—Dates and order of the above quotations—
Biography of Origen—Age, at the time of his work against Celsus,
and his commentary on St. Matthew—Persecution of Severus—
Date of the work against Celsus—Length of our Lord’s ministry
according to Origen, more than two years, but less than
thie Ὁ ρθη ξο yak OS PO RO τῷ ese WO TSB a0
Hippolytus Portuensis—Date of the Nativity according to Hippo-
lytus—Latin Chronicon, ascribed to Hippolytus—Placed the Na-
tivity in the spring—Portus Romanus—Siege of Rome by Alaric
THE. CONTENTS. xii
—Interval between the Nativity and Passion, according to Hippo-
lytus—Paschal calendar of Hippolytus—Nature of the double Oc-
taéteric cycle—Notices in the calendar—léveo.s Χριστοῦ and
Πάθος Xpicrov—The Nativity and the Passion, and the times of
each—Computus Paschalis of Cyprian—Fragment of Hippolytus
-Thebanus, ascribed to Hippolytus Portuensis........ 620—625
Archelaus—Rise of Manicheanism—Date of the Disputatio .625-626
Arnobius—Age of Arnobius .............00-seeeeeee 626—627
Eusebius—Interval between the resurrection and the ascension, appa-
rently supposed by Eusebius—Explained from Theodorit—Age of
OI ce chee Cea c's Cia + eas hot ee ee 627—628
Cyril of Jerusalem—Julianus Imperator—Date of Julian’s work
οι ΝΥ. οὐ: 628---620
Epiphanius—Dates of Epiphanius for the principal events of the
Gospel history—Date of the Nativity, the thirty-third of Herod—
Distinction of the Gemini from Rufus, or Fusius, and Rubellius—
Date of the Adversus Hereses, and Ancoratus........ 629—630
Prudentius—Age of Prudentius—Date of the Nativity, Dec. 25—
Apostolical Constitutions—Augustin—Cyril, Contra Julianum—
Πολιτεία Of Metrophanes and Alexander—Diodorus of Tarsus—
. Cassiodorus—Martyrium Pauli—Remarkable exactness of its dates
—Date of the Nativity in the Evangelium Infantize... 630—633
St. John, living at the beginning of the reign of Trajan—Ireneus—
Eusebius—Jerome—Clemens Alexandrmus—Story of St. John
- and the young man—Julius Pollux ................ 633—635
Banishment of St. John—Tertullian—The caldron of boiling oil—
Origen—Acta of Timothy—St. John buried at Ephesus— Dates of
Jerome—Dates of Augustin—Date of Theophylact—Dates of
Suidas— Dates of the paschal Chronicon—Hippolytus Portuensis—
Hippolytus the younger—Probable date of the death and the birth
GFetigohes μα te swine te alivad ody Jo-aigh ode 635—638
Dates of Epiphanius—Date of the return of St.John from exile—
Date of his Gospel—St, John and Polycarp—St. John and Cerin-
ARAN ον TORO i ais din ce des Sm «> 24 HDA use 638—639
xliv THE CONTENTS.
Date of the Apocalypse, in the commentary of Arethas—Date of the
ascension implied by it—Tradition, that the apostles continued
fourteen years at Jerusalem—Probable date when St. John perma-
nently left Jerusalem—Length of time for which the Virgin sur-
vived the ascension—Assumption of the Virgin—Time when St.
John settled at Ephesus—Life of St. John by Symeon Meta-
phrastes—Epistle of Dionysius the Areopagite, to St. John—
Soho OF ἈΝΥΝΟδ ὁ SS es 639—642
DISSERTATION XIV.
On the date of the battle of Pharsalia ............... 643—663
Controversy of De Guischard and De Lo-Looz—Date of the battle of
Pharsalia, August 9, and of the death of Pompey, Sept. 29, both in
the unrectified year, inadmissible .............4.-..+0-- 643
Course of proceedings, from the time that Cesar took the field, U. C.
705, to the battle of Pharsalia—Ingress of the brumal quarter—
Precipitaverat—The month Merkedonius, U.C. 706—Time of
the opening of the sea, in the Roman and Grecian year...643—646
Commencement of the siege of Dyrrachium—Time of the ripening
of the corn in Greece—Reduction of Spain, U.C. 705—Rais-
ing of the siege—Date of the arrival at Pharsalia—Cicero, not
present at the battle of Pharsalia—Omens before the battle—
Saying of Favonius—Time of the Comitia ..........646—649
Movements of Pompey after the battle—Account of the same things
by Lucan—Arrival at Paphos—Arrival at Pelusium—Etesian
winds—Motions of Cesar—Date of the death of Pompey—Birth-
diy af Pompey «os νος FI OT eT UREN 649—652
Arrival of Cesar at Alexandria—Date and duration of the Alexan-
drine war—Reduction of Alexandria—Length of the residence of
Cesar in Egypt—Atrovopia of Antioch—Artemisius in the year of
Antioch—Cesar at Ziela.. 1... 0... ee εν νννένννν 65 2—655
Obscurity of the date of the battle of Pharsalia, at an early period—
Similar uncertainty about the age of Pompey—Contemporary
δα τ τ ees e ke rca soe 655
Intercalary years, from U. C. 702 to 708—Oratio pro Milone—Death
THE CONTENTS. xlv
of Clodius—Ludicrous date of Cicero—Curio—The intercalation
ἀπ δίνΥ, ΤΠ FOR ρον he ve 08 655—657
Intercalary years in the Fasti Triumphales—Year of Numa—Pe-
riodic intervals of three years, between successive intercalations—In-
tercalary rule of the Grecian year—Cicero’s Oratio pro P. Quin-
as ρῶν εν νυν εν EES 657—659
Vernal equinox, in the time of Dionysius Halicarnassensis—Ver sa-
crum—Dates of eclipses, solar or lunar, in the year of Numa, and
in the modern tables—Battle of Pydna—Time when Ai milius
took the field—Date of the Virgiliarum Occasus in Africa, U. Ὁ.
708—Date of the victory over Juba—Date of the battle of Mun-
da—The Liberalia—Date of the battle in the Kalendaria—Life
of Augustus, by Nicolaus of Damascus.............. 659—663
HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS.
DISSERTATIONS.
DISSERTATION XXXIV.
On the notices of time supplied by Luke xii.
1 HAVE elsewhere ἃ asserted that the twelfth chapter
of St. Luke’s Gospel contains numerous indications of
the period to which it belongs; and that as the con-
cluding period of our Lord’s ministry. If the proof
of this position can be established, the error committed
by such Harmonies as place this chapter before even
the beginning to teach in parables, that is, the middle
of our Saviour’s ministry, must be apparent without
further comment. They introduce an anachronism of
nearly eighteen months in extent.
The foundation of this mistake, which is the sup-
posed identity of Luke xi. 14, and what follows, with
the parallel instance of dispossession and its conse-
quences, related by St. Matthew, has sufficiently, I
hope, been overthrown in the preceding Dissertation.
Yet among the ill consequences of the mistake, so long
as it remains uncorrected, this must necessarily be one;
that we are thereby deprived of the means of appreci-
ating rightly the force, the beauty, the propriety of
one of the longest, and most admirable of our Lord’s
discourses in public. In order to the due percep-
a Dissertation xxxi. Vol. ii. 537.
VOL. III. B
ῷ Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
tion of such qualities in a given instance, regard must
necessarily be had to the time when the discourse was
delivered ; to the occasion, which called it forth; to
the circumstances aud situation of the speaker and of
his hearers at the time, as well as to the topics or sen-
timents themselves. Much might be said with fitness
and effect, at one time, which would not be apposite
nor in character at another.
To instance only in the virtue of Christian watchful-
ness, and so much of the ensuing discourse, from verse
35 downwards, as is devoted to it; a virtue which,
at no period during the actual presence of Christ upon
earth, could have any room for its exertion, or begin
to be practically incumbent upon his followers. For
being altogether founded on the doctrine, and on the
expectation of some second coming of Christ, it was
dependent conditionally on the previous fact of his de-
parture; and until that had taken place, by his per-
sonal removal into heaven, no principle of duty, with
a view exclusively to his return, could as yet be in
force. Reasonably then might it be expected that the
first mention of such a duty, and the proper arguments
by which it was to be substantiated, would both occur
towards the close of our Lord’s ministry solely; when
the time of his departure was at hand. If the place
of the chapter is rightly assigned by me, this expecta-
tion is verified in the present instance; and it is still
more indubitably true of the next, and the only remain-
ing instance of a discourse upon the same topic, Matt.
xxiv. 42, and the parallel places of St. Mark and of St.
Luke; almost to the end of the prophecy upon Mount
Olivet.
More examples of the same accommodation of the
topics of the discourse to the time, when we suppose it
to have been delivered, might be pointed out now ; were
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 6 8
it not that this would be to anticipate that very examin-
ation of those topics in detail, which is requisite to the
confirmation of the assertion alluded to above. To
this examination then, but no further than may suffice
for that purpose, I shall accordingly proceed.
That the chapter contains the particulars of a series
of discourses, all belonging to the same period of time,
may be proved by various considerations.
First, the reference at the beginning to the collection
of a numerous multitude, during something else which
had been going on meanwhile, is clearly to the circum-
stances related in the preceding chapter; more espe-
cially, to the time taken up by the sitting at meat, and
by the protracted conversation, consequent upon it, in
the house of the Pharisee. The same reference is im-
plied in the nature of the topic, first insisted on, the
ζύμη τῶν Φαρισαίων, or ὑπόκρισις; for that is best ex-
plained upon the principles of association, by the recol-
lection of what had just occurred; not merely with
respect to those pretensions to superior purity and
virtue, which were instanced at xi. 38, 39, but also to
that series of captious interrogations, designed to make
our Lord commit himself in some manner or other,
which is alluded to xi. 53, 54. ?
Secondly, when he returned into public, and had be-
gun to address those about him, they were his disciples
whom he addressed first; which clearly implies that,
some time in the course of the same occasion, he must
have addressed the people also. Accordingly, this is seen
to have happened in two different instances, one xii. 18--
21, and the other xii. 54—tthe end; to one or to both
of which the Evangelist must consequently refer. Now
there is this circumstance of distinction between them ;
that, in the second, our Lord spoke to the multitude
of his own accord; in the first, in consequence of an
B 2
4 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
interruption: in the second, upon a general subject
connected with his ministry; in the first, upon a
particular topic suggested by the interruption itself.
The second then was the more likely of the two to be
referred to; and the second is the conclusion of the
chapter. But if the end and the beginning of a cer-
tain discourse belong to the same point of time, the
intermediate parts, whatever be the subject to which
they relate, cannot belong to a different one.
Besides which, the topic of this last address to the
people is evidently connected with the demand of an
extraordinary sign; and verse tenth, in the course of
the original address to the disciples, is connected with
the fact of the blasphemy against the Son of man,
as contradistinguished to the blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost: both which were subjects suggested by
recent events, and largely discussed a little before. It
follows then that the whole of this twelfth chapter is
strictly consecutive upon the course of proceedings
from xi. 14 forwards; and it is not less apparent that
ΧΙ]. 1-9 at least is strictly consecutive upon it: so that
from xi. 14 to xiii. 9, we possess a continuous account
of events, belonging to either the whole or to some one
and the same part of one day.
This conclusion being established, the substance of
35-48, which is in general the doctrine of Christian
watchfulness, besides being parabolic in its nature, and
therefore not a fit subject for the present work ; as far
as it was qualified to supply any argument respecting
the time of the chapter, has been in fact anticipated.
The next division, which contains either clear or pre-
sumptive intimations to the same effect, is that which
concludes the chapter—from verse 49-59 ; distributable
into two parts; one from 49-53, the other from 54—
59: the former, a continuation of the address to the
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 5
disciples, and the latter, the substance of an address to
the people.
In the first of these divisions itself, there is also a
double reference ; one, to the speaker, 49, 50, the other,
to the parties addressed, and consequently the dis-
ciples, 51—53. Upon each of these we may observe in
common that it would be in vain to search for the con-
nection of either with the discourse which goes before,
in any community of topics, or in the usual laws which
regulate the transition of ideas: nor in any principle
but that of the proximity of the close of our Lord’s
personal ministry, and of the natural effect, in refer-
ence both to himself and to his hearers, which the con-
templation of that proximity was likely to produce
upon his mind.
For to consider the Jatter division first. The ad-
dress to the disciples is obviously levelled against
something in their present opinions or persuasions,
concerning the speaker and the final event of his com-
ing, which the result would prove to be diametrically
the reverse of the truth. This same thing, it cannot
admit of a question, was their persuasion of the nature
of the kingdom of the Messiah, or of what would be
the effect of the appearance of Christ both upon him
and upon them. Their minds at this present time
were possessed with one idea, that his kingdom would
be temporal, and the immunity of his person perpetual;
so that, before the event of the crucifixion itself, they
could not comprehend the most simple and direct as-
surances of the fact, because they could not conceive
the possibility, of his future sufferings. Much less
were they prepared to entertain the distinct apprehen-
sion of those personal dangers and inconveniences,
which, under the general name of persecution emanat-
ing from the enmity of their unbelieving countrymen,
B 3
6 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
were sometime to redound upon themselves who be-
lieved in Christ.
What however I would particularly observe is this ;
that the substance of these verses, in St. Luke, occurred
before, and at a much earlier period, not less than a
year from the present time, at Matt. x. 34-37 or 39:
where, with the same specific allusion to the future
fortunes of the disciples, in consequence of their mas-
ter’s coming, there was none to our Lord’s own; with
the same general prediction of the fact, there was no
such express intimation of the instant proximity of the
fact, of persecution and suffering, as concerned either
him or them, like that which is here conveyed in the
terms ἤδη ἀνήφθη, and still more in those of the ἀπὸ τοῦ
νῦν. It is reasonable to infer that the zzme of the ful-
filment of the prediction was much nearer now than
then; for, if that was the case, it would account for
the distinction at once. _
With respect to the first of the same divisions; that
apostrophe to our Lord’s personal sufferings, so forci-
ble, as to shew that he felt them in prospect deeply ;
so abrupt, as to seem the effect of a sudden emotion;
is by nothing so easily to be accounted for, as by the
contemplation of the near approach of his passion §it-
self. Neither the kind nor the degree οὗ those suffer-
ings was unknown to our Lord from the first ; and if
the prospect of their futurity, combined with this per-
fect understanding of their nature, could not-but be at
all times revolting to the ὁμοιοπάθεια of his common
humanity, it is probable it would be most so when the
crisis was nearest at hand. The intensity of the agony
in Gethsemane, whatever else might contribute towards
it, must partly if not mainly be ascribed to this cause.
What I have to observe here also is that, if the idea of
his personal sufferings is seen to have ever, even mo-
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 7
mentarily, disturbed the equanimity of our Lord, it
was only on the eve of their arrival. At the begin-
ning of his ministry, when they were yet comparatively
distant, and even when two thirds of its duration were
over», he alluded to their futurity with the same calm-
ness and composure, which he displayed at last in the
endurance of them. |
And that the words do contain an allusion to these suf-
ferings is proved by verse 50, in the occurrence of the
term βάπτισμα. The same word, along with another
still more significant, in the use of a similar metaphorical
expression for the same idea, occurs in the answer to
the sons of Zebedee ; Can ye drink of the cup, which
I am to drink? and be baptized with the baptism,
with which J am baptized°? The word βαπτίζεσθαι,
in this figurative sense of persecution or suffering,
endured for the sake of religion in general, or of any
main article of religion in particular, seems to be so
employed in that celebrated passage: ἐπεὶ τί ποιήσουσιν
οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, εἰ ὅλως νεκροὶ οὐκ ἔγείρον--
ται; τί καὶ βαπτίζονται ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρών 5 τί καὶ ἡμεῖς κιν-
δυνεύομεν πᾶσαν ὥραν ἃ; the context of which proves
that βαπτίζεσθαι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν IS κινδυνεύειν ὑπὲρ τῶν νε-
xpov—the fire of which baptism, the brunt of which
danger, in vindication of one of the main articles of
the Christian faith, the resurrection of the dead, falling
principally on the champions of all those articles κατ᾽
ἐξοχὴν, the Apostles, St. Paul naturally specifies them
in general, or himself in particular, directly afterwards:
Ti καὶ ἡμεῖς κινδυνεύομεν πᾶσαν ὥραν ; and, καθ᾽ ἡμέραν
ἀποθνήσκω. κ. τ. A. *
bettas gt explanation of the sage from the Acta Pionii, Acta
phrase, I think, is strikingly il- Martyrum, 150. cap. 21.
lustrated by the following pas- Hee me ducit causa, hec me
Ὁ John ii. 19. vi. 51—58. 70. ς Matt. xx. 22. Mark x. 38.
d : Cor. xv. 29, 30.
B 4
8 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
The parallel passage of St. Matthew being compared
with that of St. Luke “,
Μὴ νομίσητε, ὅτι
ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν.
it follows that what our Lord did not come to cast
upon the land, in the one, must be the ἀντίστοιχον of
what he did come to cast upon the land, in the other:
and if πῦρ be the latter and εἰρήνη the former, then πῦρ in
the one must be the ἀντίστοιχον of εἰρήνη in the other ;
and vice versa. Now nothing can be the proper ἀντίστοι-
Πῦρ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰς τὴν γῆν.
potissimum ratio compellit ad
mortem, ut populus omnis intel-
ligat resurrectionem futuram
esse post mortem. The holy
martyr was, at that very time,
nailed down to his funeral pyre.
Surely this, if any thing, might
be called βαπτίζεσθαι ὑπὲρ τῶν ve-
κρῶν : not to mention that mar-
tyrdom, under all circumstances,
is described by the Fathers as a
baptism ; a baptism in and by
the blood of the sufferer, if pos-
sible holier and better, than pro-
per baptism itself, and where
that was wanting, abundantly
competent to supply its place.
The proper meaning of the verb,
is to dip under water, to drown,
in the sense of being exposed to
danger, distress, or suffering,
beyond the ability of the patient
to endure ; in which sense βαπτί-
ζεσθαι is of classical occurrence,
used absolutely. Diodorus Sic.
i. 73: τοὺς δὲ ἰδιώτας, διὰ τὴν ἐκ
τούτων εὐπορίαν, οὐ βαπτίζουσι ταῖς
εἰσφοραῖς. Plutarch, De Liberis
Educandis, Operum vi. 30: τὸν
αὐτὸν τρόπον Ψυχὴ τοῖς μὲν συμμέ-
τροις αὔξεται πόνοις, τοῖς δ᾽ ὑπερβάλ-
λουσι βαπτίζεται. MaximusT yrius,
Dissertatio vi. 3: ὑφ᾽ ὧν τὸ φιλεῖν,
e Matt. x. 34.
{
Τ
ὶ
ἐλαυνόμενον καὶ κατορυττόμενον καὶ
βαπτιζόμενον, μόγις που σώζει a-
μαυρὰ ἴχνη καὶ ἀσθενῆ. Charito,
Lib. ii. 28. 1. 2: καίτοι γὰρ βα-
πτιξόμενος ὑπὸ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας, γεν-
ναῖος ἀνὴρ ἐπειρᾶτο ἀντέχεσθαι. Pri-
marily, the word applies to a
ship foundering at sea. . The Va-
lentinians put a strange con-
struction on the text: under-
standing by the person baptized
ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, in each instance,
the party’s guardian angel. Vide
Clemens Alex. Operum ii. 974.
ExcerptaTheodoti,xxii. In other
instances, that vicarious baptism
in behalf of catechumens, who
died before they had been bap-
tized, was literally practised by
certain of the heretical sects of
old, especially by the followers
of Cerinthus and Marcion, is in-
disputably true. Vide Tertul-
lian, i. 414. Contra Marcionem,
v. 10: ili. 308. De Resurrectione
Carnis, 48: Epiphanius, i. 114.
B. Cerinthiani, vi : Ibid. 230. D.
Marcionistx : ii. 143. A. Anace-
phaleosis, ix: Theophylact, ii.
223. C. in 1 ad Cor. xv. or Chry-
sostom, Operum x.378. B—E. in
τ ad Corinthios, Homilia x]. 1.
Luke xii. 49.
Jotices of time supplied by Luke xii. 9
Xov of εἰρήνη, but wdéXcuos; nor of πόλεμος but εἰρήνη :
and consequently the signification of πῦρ, as so opposed,
must be that of πόλεμος. Nor in fact can any meta-
phor, or interchange of ideas, be more natural than
this, which personifies the idea of war by that of a fire
or conflagration. |
But this is not all: for if by εἰρήνη here must be
meant the quiet and unmolested exercise of the Chris-
tian religion—a kind of peace in which none could
have a proper interest except the professors of the re-
ligion themselves—then by the war, opposed to it,
must be intended the turbulence and contrariety by
which that quiet and unmolested exercise should be
forcibly obstructed ; a turbulence and contrariety be-
ginning from the enemies of the religion, but spending
their fury on its friends and advocates; a war which
should originate in the bosom of private families, and
ripen the seeds of discord in the lap of natural chari-
ties; a war which should spread from thence to the
community at large, and operate to the dissolution of
the social order; a war which the strong and violent
should every where wage against the weak and unre-
sisting ; which, from the rapidity of its propagation,
the universality of its operation, the searching nature
of its effects, might well be compared to a fire, kindled
perhaps by a spark, but finding materials at hand, soon
_ blown up into a blaze, and wrapping eventually an
entire country in the same conflagration.
Such a fire and such a war were the coming of
Christ, and the propagation of the Gospel, to produce
in the Jewish community. What shall we say then to
the time of its beginning, and to the first subjects of
its effects ? Were this violence and this fire to be di-
rected against the Master, or against the disciples first?
Doubtless against the Master first, and against the dis-
10 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
ciples next. For they were to drink of zs cup; that
is, not until fe had drunk of it before them: they were
to be bathed in Ais fire; that is, not until he had been
baptized therein himself. In all things it behoved him
to be made like unto his brethren, both as an example
of patience and as a pattern of virtue. If so, and
Christ must of necessity suffer before, it is true, but
still in the same way in kind as his disciples ; then the
fiery ordeal, which hereafter awaited them, was first to
be undergone by him. Yet the period of his suffer-
ings, strictly so called, was a determinate period; as
may be collected from that peculiar, but regular mode
of designating it by which St. John especially speaks
of it; his hour, his hour κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν, and the power *
of darkness; which hour we consequently perceive to
be the time of his apprehension, trial, and passion ;
that is, the last act of his ministry upon earth. As
this period drew nigh, the fire, though not yet kindled,
was nearer and nearer the time of its birth; and when
it was close at hand, it might be said to be already
lighted up: and this is the very manner in which it is
referred to here. Ei ἤδη ἀνήφθη, spoken of this fire,
cannot imply less than that it was either then kindled,
or shortly to be so. The end of our Lord’s ministry
therefore at this time was not far distant.
Let the whole passage, then, be rendered as perhaps
it ought to be rendered; with a short paraphrase of
each verse subjoined. I came to cast a fire on the
land; the very purpose of my mission was to excite
such a fire, and to endure its first effects myself :
and if even now it is kindled, what would I desire ?
* The power of darkness, do with, or dispose of things and
that is, the authority, ἐξουσία, persons, pro libitu, which abso-
of darkness: a word always to lute power and control over
be understood of that right to them necessarily imply.
Notices of time supplied by Luke χὶ. jl
if the purpose of my mission is so much nearer its
attainment, why should I wish it otherwise? But I
have a baptism to be baptized withal, and how am
I straitened until it be accomplished! How anxious I
am that it should soon be completed ; how dearly do I
wish it were over!
Compare with this the following from St. John‘,
which refers to the same prospect of our Lord’s suf-
ferings, but only at a later period: Now is my soul
troubled! and what would I say? (τί εἴπω :) Father,
save me from this hour! yet, διὰ τοῦτο, for the sake
of this hour, ain I come unto it. Why, then, should I
pray to be delivered from it? There is_ sufficient
agreement not only in the general sentiment, but even
in the particular phraseology of these two passages, to
shew that each is the same kind of apostrophe, pro-
duced by the common sensibility, and by the emotion
arising from the common sensibility, on two distinct
but cognate occasions, of the near prospect of the same
painful and disastrous event.
The part addressed to the multitude, which con-
cludes the chapter, admits also of distribution into the
substance of 54-56, and the substance of 57-59. The
first of these contains a distinct allusion to the demand
of a sign, that is, an extraordinary proof of the truth
of our Saviour’s character, preferred and declined in
the eleventh chapter. If there were any doubt upon
this point, it would be removed by a comparison with
Matt. xvi. 1-4, where the demand of such a sign, cha-
racterised by its proper name as the sign from heaven,
-is found to be put and declined in terms almost the
same; the account of which was probably omitted, at
that time, in the corresponding part of St. Luke’s Gos-
‘pel, because he knew that something of the same kind
f Ch. xii. 27.
12 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
would occur again here. Ὀψίας γενομένης, λέγετε"
εὐδία (ἔσται) πυῤῥάζει yap ὁ οὐρανός" καὶ mpwl* σήμερον
χειμών" πυῤῥάζει γὰρ στυγνάζων ὃ οὐρανός. ὑποκριταὶ, τὸ
μὲν πρόσωπον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ “γινώσκετε διακρίνειν, τὰ δὲ ση-
μεῖα τῶν καιρῶν οὐ δύνασθε ;
In both these instances, the nature of the reasoning
employed is to proceed upon the acknowledged obser-
vation of certain natural phenomena as indicating cer-
tain natural effects, the connection between which was
obvious to every one; and as a case in point, they con-
stitute the principles of a reductio ad absurdum, with
a view to shew that it was mere hypocrisy on the part
of the inquirers to be able thus to judge of the signs of
the weather, or to draw the proper inference from the
affections of the heavens, and yet mistake the signs of
the times; not to draw the proper inference from the
events which were daily passing before their eyes.
That the demand then of an extraordinary means of
conviction, distinct from the ordinary or from the evi-
dence daily produced, may be equally referred to in
both these instances, must be apparent. There is some
difference, however, in the later, compared with the
earlier, which convinces me that more is intended by
that, than was by this. It is not without reason that
St. Matthew’s general designation of σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν
διακρίνειν is changed in St. Luke, for the particular one
of τὸν δὲ καιρὸν τοῦτον πῶς οὐ δοκιμάζετε; The truth is
that our Lord in St. Matthew was reproaching his hear-
ers with not discerning, in the proofs of his Divine
commission daily vouchsafed before, the time or season
of the Messiah in general; in St. Luke, with not dis-
covering, from the same proofs, as now vouchsafed, the
last time or season of the Messiah in particular. The
illustrations, which he employs, will lead to no other
conclusion.
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 13
It is a well known fact with respect to Judza, that
the seasons of rain, and of fair weather, in that country
were fixed and determinate: each had its proper com-
mencement, and each its proper termination; and there
was a definite interval between them. No allusion
occurs in the sacred writers except to two such periods
of rain; at opposite quarters of the year, and called
respectively the former and the latter rain. From the
passage of Joel, quoted below 8, which is to this effect,
He will cause to come down for you the rain, the for-
mer rain, and the datfer rain, in the first month—it
appears that the latter rain was that which fell in the
spring, in or about the first month of the sacred year,
Abib or Nisan, answering partly to April and partly
to March with us. The same thing is implied by Je-
rome in his commentary upon Amos": Que locusta
venit in principio imbris serotini, quando cuncta virent
et parturit omnis ager, et diversarum arborum flores
in sul generis poma rumpuntur: for this is a descrip-
tion of the month Adar among the Jews. This, then,
is the rain alluded to by Solomon:; For lo! the win-
ter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds
is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and
the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell.
Amos iv. 7, it is said, And also I have withholden the
rain from you, when there were yet three months to
the harvest; which harvest being necessarily the wheat
harvest, the season whereof was Pentecost, the period
of the rain, three months prior to that, is at least the
close of the last, or the beginning of the first month in
i, Lev. xxvi. 4. Deut. xi. 14. xxviii. 12. Job xxix. 23. Prov. xvi. 15. Jerem.
Ni. 3. v.24. Hos. vi. 3. Joel ii. 23. Zech. x. 1. James v. 7. h Operum
iii, 1432. ad prineipium. ? Canticles ii, 11—13.
14 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
the sacred year. Jerome’s commentary tm locum is to this
effect, Significat autem vernum tempus extremi mensis
Aprilis, a quo usque ad messem frumenti, tres menses
supersunt; Maius, Junius, Julius'; which, however, is
not altogether a correct statement ;
for wheat harvest
in Judea, no more than in Egypt, was ever later than
the beginning of June *. Now as the period of barley-
* Δυομένης πλειάδος is specified
by Josephus * as the beginning
of one of the rainy seasons ;
which may be shewn from the
context to be that of the vernal
or latter rain as such.
lam well aware indeed that the
notes of time, δυομένης πλειάδος,
περὶ πλειάδων δύσιν, and the like,
in their ordinary acceptation im-
ply just the reverse of this; the
commencement of the autumnal,
not the end of the brumal quar-
ter. But that Josephus in-
tended to describe the period of
the vernal rains, whether he has
described it by its proper cha-
racteristics or not, appears from
the fact that this supply of wa-
ter from heaven was early in the
duration of the siege alluded to,
and long prior to the feast of
Tabernacles. Now the feast of
Tabernacles could never be later
than the period ordinarily meant
by the πλειάδων δύσις ; which the
ancient Calendaria! placed about
forty-three or forty-four days
after the autumnal equinox, as
they did their rising about the
same time after the vernal. For-
ty-four days after the autumnal
equinox bring us to the seventh
of November; almost a month
later than the latest time when
the feast of Tabernacles could
fall. The necessity of the case
i Operum iii. 1401. ad principium.
H.N. xviii. §9. ii. 47. xi. 15. xvii. 30. §. 2.
then requires that Josephus
should be understood of the
πλειάδων ἐπιτολὴ, not {Π6. δύσις :
the, time of which would be
early in May, not much poste-
rior to the ordinary termination
of the vernal rains. :
There is a passage in Aischy-
lus which, as implying a similar
inaccuracy, admits of compa-
rison with this of Josephus.
Speaking of the capture of ‘froy,
he describes the ἵππου νεοσσὸς,
equus durateus, as πήδημ᾽ ὀρούσας
ἀμφὶ πλειάδων δύσιν. Agamem-
non, 835: whereas the uniform
historical tradition is that Troy
was taken in the Attic month
Thargelion, Scirrophorion, or
the like. Nec referam Sceas, et
Pergama Apollinis artes, | Et
Danaum undecimo vere redisse
rates. Propertius, ili. ix. 39.
Yet Eusebius (Chronicon Arm.
Lat. i. 367) though quoting pro-
fessedly from Dionysius of Hali- Ὁ
carnassus, represents him as say-
ing that Troy was taken estate
vergente, xvii. diebus ante hiber-
num solstitium. Syncellus i. 324.
1. 15. has the same pa
Dionysius (Ant. Rom. i. 63,)
really says, seventeen ret be-
fore the summer solstice. Cf.
Plutarch, Camillus, το : Clemens
Alex, i. 381. 1. g—19: Strom.
ΕΣ,
k Ant. Jud. xiii. viii. 2. 1 Pliny,
Notices of time supplied by Luke xu. 15
harvest coincided with the anniversary of the Pass-
over, and the effect of the latter rains, as indeed of the
rainy season in general, when over, was necessarily to
swell the Jordan; hence it is stated in the book of
Joshua™, Jordan overfloweth all his banks, all the
time of harvest, that is of barley-harvest*; for the
river was crossed on the tenth of Nisan®. By the
time of barley-harvest, that is, before the middle of
Nisan, which in a rectified year answered to the middle
of April, the vernal rains would almost always be
over: and sometimes by the middle of March. There
is a case-in point, mentioned by Josephus, when the
Jordan was impassable on account of the rain, on or
about the fourth of Dystrus; which corresponded in
that year to February 25.°
After the cessation of the last or the spring rains,
the continuance of fine weather until the periodic re-
currence of the first or the autumnal rains; that is, all
through the vernal and summer quarters; is equally
well attested. σπάνιον δὲ, εἴ ποτε, TO κλίμα τοῦτο θέρους
ὕεταιΡ, Nunquam enim in fine mensis J unii, sive in mense
Julio, in his provinciis, maximeque in Judea, pluvias
vidimus‘4. Hence, at the inauguration of Saul, which
1 Sam. xii. 17 proves to have taken place about the feast
of Pentecost, or in the ἀκμὴ of wheat-harvest, thunder
and rain were so strange a phenomenon, as justly to
be appealed to in token of the displeasure of God.
Nor is this all. The interval between the latter and
the former rains seems to have been in general the
interval between the autumnal and the vernal equinox ;
* So likewise is it said todo Josephum, vol. ii. (Havercam-
by the Pseudo-Aristeas, apud _pii.)
m Ch. iii. 15. n Ch. iv.1g. Vide also 1 Chron. xii. 15. Jerem. xii. 5.
xlix.19. δ Bell. Jud. iv. vii. 3. 5. P Bell. Jud. iii. vii. 12. Vide also
Ant. xviii. viii. 6. 4 Hieronymus, Operum iii. 1401. ad principium.
16 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
that is, about six months. The one were over about the
Passover, and the other set in shortly after the Sceno-
pegia'. The duration of the dearth in the time of
Elijah, though not specified in the Old Testament,
further than as almost three years, is twice specified
in the New’, and each time as a dearth of three years
and six months in length; which is to be accounted
for in this manner. The strictly preternatural period
of the drought both began and terminated, as was to
be expected, with the ordinary season of the first rain;
that is, the autumnal quarter of the year: and lasted
just three years in all. The six months, in addition
to that, were, consequently, the ordinary interval be-
tween the latter and the former rain: which, though
they did certainly aggravate the whole duration, and
the consequent effects of the drought, could not by
themselves be considered unnatural or extraordinary.
That this explanation is correct appears from Jose-
phus‘t; who cites Menander, the Tyrian historian, in
testimony to a drought in the reign of Ithobal, the
Kthbaal of Scripture and father of Jezebel; which
extended from Hyperberetzus or Tisri in one year, to
the same month in the next. And hence we may
better appreciate the maternal piety of Rizpah, the
daughter of Aiah, and concubine of Saul, which is in-
stanced, 2 Sam. xxi. 9, 10. - For these seven men
were put to death in the first days of barley-harvest,
that is, so early as the sixteenth of Nisan; and her
watching over their bodies, which lasted until water
dropped upon them out of heaven, must have conti-
nued past the same time in the month of Tisri. The
Mishna places the recurrence of the autumnal rains,
one year with another, about the end of the first
τ Cf. Ezra x. g—13. 5. Luke iv. 25. James v. 17. t Ant. Jud. viii.
xiii. 2.
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 17
week in Marchesvan; a fortnight after the close of the
feast of Tabernacles * ".
Now the natural phenomena, mentioned by our Sa-
viour, are referred to as indicating not merely certain
natural consequences in general, but certain stated and
regular consequences in particular. [νεται οὕτω, or
καὶ γίνεται, is subjoined to each. The natural effects,
supposed to be of this regular kind, are these two,
rain and καύσων ; which may well be understood of
dry, and hot or sultry weather. The appearance, which
indicated the former, was the rising of the cloud from
the west; as that, which prognosticated the latter,
was the beginning of the south wind to blow.
Now the very terms, in which the first of these
symptoms is alluded to—érav ἴδητε THY νεφέλην ἀνατέλ-
λουσαν ἀπὸ dveuev—authorize the following conclusions
respecting it. First, it was some well known and re-
markable cloud ; secondly, it was never observed in any
quarter but the west: and we have seen that it was
the harbinger of rain. The west in Judea is the re-
gion of the Mediterranean sea; this cloud from the
west, therefore, was necessarily a cloud from that sea.
The cloud itself, the quarter where it first appeared, and
* The result of Mr. Har- many days later than the arri-
mer’s observations on this sub- νὰ] of John of Gischala at Jeru-
ject in general is, that rain salem, nor that arrival than the
might fall in Judea so early as end of the month Tisri, must
the end of September; but that have coincided with about the
the rainy season as such could middle of Marchesvan; and have
not be said to be set in before been consequently the setting in
the beginning of November. of the autumnal rains. See also
Josephus supplies a case in ἃ similar instance in Diodorus
point when it appears to have SiculusW, of a storm encoun-
so begun’. The remarkable tered περὶ πλειάδος δύσιν, when
storm of rain and wind, which Demetrius Poliorcetes was sail-
is there described, being not ing witha fleet to invade Egypt.
U ji. 357- 3 Vv Bell. Jud. iv. iv. 5. W χα, 74)
VOL. III. C
18 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
the effect by which it was-followed, are all satisfactorily
illustrated by a parallel instance, at the end of the great
drought before alluded to*. This cloud (ἡ νεφέλη) was
that cloud, in the shape of a man’s hand, which the
servant of Elijah, at his seventh errand, saw and re-
ported to be rising from the sea: after which, in a very
short time, and almost before Ahab could prepare his
chariot for departing, The heaven was black with clouds
and wind, and there was a great rain. It is reasonable
to presume that this was a familiar phenomenon in
Judza; the natural effect of a long continuance of dry
and sultry weather; and the natural prognostic also of
its speedy termination, by the setting in of the autum-
nal rains *.
With regard to the other phenomenon; the south,
in reference to Judza, is the region of the sandy desert
of Idumza and of Arabia; that is, it is the region of
barrenness, heat, and thirst: a wind from that quarter,
therefore, would naturally be the forerunner of sultry
weather. Concerning the south winds in that quarter,
Diodorus writes thus: θερμοὶ “γίνονται καθ᾽ ὑπερβολὴν,
ὥστε καὶ τὰς ὕλας ἐκπυροῦν, καὶ τῶν καταφευγόντων εἰς τὰς
ἐν ταῖς καλύβαις σκιὰς ἐκλύειν τὰ σώματα: Seneca; Au-
ster quoque, qui ex illo tractu venit, ventorum calidis-
simus est?: Pliny; Austros ibi tam ardentes flare, ut
zestatibus sylvas accendant, invenimus apud auctores?:
Philo Judeus; ἕηρός τε yap ἐστι, καὶ κεφαλαλγὴς, καὶ
βαρυήκοος, ἄσας τε. καὶ ἀδημονίας ἐμποιεῖν ἱκανὸς, καὶ μά-
λιστ᾽ ἐν Αὐγύπτῳ, κειμένη κατὰ τὰ νότια, OL ὧν αἱ περιπο-
λήσεις τῶν φωσφόρων ἀστέρων, ὡς ἅμα τῷ διακινηθῆναι, τὸν
ἀφ᾽ ἡλίου φλογμὸν συνεπωθεῖσθαι, καὶ πάντα καίειν »,
* According to Mr. Harmer the prognostic of the same na-
the same natural phenomenon is tural event still.
_ ¥ 1 Kings xviii. 41—end. y Diodorus Sic. iii. 47. Vide also Herodotus,
ii. 22. z Naturalium Quest. iv. 2. §. 18. a H.N. xii. 42. b Operum
li. 99. 1. 37-43. De Mose. Vide also Aristotle, Meteorologica, ii. 3. 5.
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 19
But this is not all. A variety of notices, relating to
the south wind, may be specified from ancient authors;
which, as it appears to me, are applicable to the case
in point.
I. The year being taken throughout, the prevailing
winds, almost every where, are described as the north
and the south. [Πλεῖστοι yap βορέαι καὶ νότοι “γίγνονται
τῶν ἀνέμων “--- λείσπων δὲ ὄντων. ὥσπερ εἴρηται, βορείων
καὶ νοτίων d.
II. The south wind, in southern regions, was a fair
wind; and hence one of its names, and perhaps the
most appropriate, was that of Λευκόνοτος. ᾿Αργέστην
δὲ νότον, TOV λευκόνοτον᾽ οὗτος γὰρ ὀλίγα τὰ νέφη ποιεῖ ©
—' Evo τὸν νότον οἴονται διὰ παντὸς ὑγρὸν εἶναι" τὸ δ᾽ οὐχ
οὕτως ἔχει: φαίνεται yap ἐνίοτε Enpos γινόμενος" ὃν καὶ
προσαγορεύουσιν οἱ ἰδιῶται devkdvorov'—Permutant et
duo naturam cum situ. Auster Africz serenus, Aquilo
nubilus $@—O μὲν γὰρ νότος ἀεὶ τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ τόποις al-
θριος "' “Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ὁ νότος αἴθριος τοῖς περὶ τὴν Λι-
βύην i—Kai γὰρ τὸν νότον παρ᾽ ἡμῖν μὲν εἶναι χειμέριον,
περὶ δὲ τὴν Αἰθιοπίαν αἴθριον ὑπάρχειν κ᾽
ALBUS ut obscuro deterget nubila ccelo
Sepe NOTUS, neque parturit imbres
Perpetuos
Horace, Carminum i. vii. 15.
Quare ne tibi sit tanti Sidonia vestis,
Ut timeas, quoties nubilus Auster erit,
Propertius, ii. xvi. 55.
III. The south wind was an etesian or monsoon, as
well as the northern. Both Pliny and Diodorus! at-
test that the etesian winds were not confined to the
northern quarter of the heavens. Ὅθεν καὶ τὸ θαυμα-
¢ Aristotle, Meteorologica, ii. 4. d Theophrastus, De Ventis, 404. ad
medium. e Strabo, i. 78. f Galen, Operum ix. 258. B. g Pliny,
H. N. ii. 48. h Theophrastus, De Ventis, 403. ad medium. i Aristotle,
Meteorologica, ii. 3. k Diodorus Siculus, i. 41. 1 Pliny, H. N. ii. 48.
Diodorus, i. 39.
a ¢
20 Dissertation Thirly-fourth.
ζόμενον ws οὐκ ὃν, διατὶ βορέαι μὲν ἐτησίαι “γίνονται, νότοι
δὲ οὐ “γίνονται, φαίνεται πῶς συμβαίνειν ‘—Etesiz et pro-
dromi...qui certo tempore anni, cum Canis oritur, ex alia
atque alia parte cceli spirant—P. Nigidii in secundo
librorum, quos de vento composuit, verba hee sunt ;
Etesiz et Austri anniversarii, secundo sole, flant!.
IV. The northern monsoons were in general the
summer wind; and the southern the winter. Hence
Lucretius, in his beautiful picture of the seasons:
It Ver, et Venus; et Veris prenuncius ante
Pennatus graditur Zephyrus, vestigia propter
Flora quibus mater, prespargens ante viai
Cuncta, coloribus egregiis et odoribus obplet.
Inde loci sequitur Calor aridus, et comes una
Pulverulenta Ceres, et Etesia flabra Aquilonum.
Inde Auctumnus adit, graditur simul Euius Euan:
Inde aliz Tempestates, Venteique, sequuntur ;
Altitonans Volturnus, et Auster fulmine pollens.
Tandem Bruma niveis adfert, pigrumque rigorem
Reddit ; Hyems sequitur, crepitans ac dentibus Algu.
: γι γῆν,
Hence also his description of the equinoctial points
themselves :
Nam medio cursu flatiis Aquilonis et Austri,
Distinet zquato ccelum discrimine metas. Ib. 688.
᾿Αποροῦσι δέ τινες διὰ Ti βορέαι μὲν “γίνονται συνεχεῖς, ods
καλοῦμεν ἐτησίας, μετὰ τὰς θερινὰς τροπὰς, νότοι δ᾽ οὕτως
οὐ γίνονται μετὰ τὰς χειμερινάς. ἔχει δὲ οὐκ ἀλόγως" γγί-
νονται μὲν "γὰρ οἱ καλούμενοι λευκόνοτοι τὴν ἀντικειμένην
ὥραν (τοῖς βορείοις). Quia flatibus Htestarum implen-
tur vada (Caspii sc. maris); Azbernus Auster revolvit
fluctus". “Ore ὁ ἥλιός ἐστιν ἐν Αὐγοκέρωτι, τῷ Τυβὲ μηνὶ,
ὅς ἐστι κατὰ Ἱ Ρωμαίους ᾿Ιανουάριος, ὅτε καὶ ὁ νότος ἐν χει-
Move πνεῖ ™,
k Theophrastus, De Ventis, 404. ad calcem. 1 Aulus Gellius, ii. 22.
m Aristotle, Meteorologica, ii. 5. n Tacitus, Ann. vi. 33. nn Scholia
ad Arati Phenomena, 408.
Notices of time supplied by Luke xi. 21
V. The southern wind, among its other times, blew
most regularly at the close of the brumal quarter, and
the beginning of the vernal. Columella, De Re Rustica;
xvii. Kalend. Febr... Africus, interdum Auster, cum plu-
via—yv. Kalend. Febr. Auster, aut Africus, hiemat"—Sex
diebus ante Maias idus; quod tempus austrinum est °.
‘Exatépwv οἷον τάξις, ἐν οἷς χρόνοις μάλιστα πνέουσι, κατὰ
λόγον ἐστί" τοῖς μὲν βορείοις, χειμῶνός τε, καὶ θέρους, καὶ
μετοπώρον.. .. τοῖς δὲ νοτίοις, κατὰ χειμῶνα τε, καὶ ἀρχο-
μένου ἔαρος, καὶ μετοπώρου ληγόντος---οἱ “γὰρ ἠρινοὶ νότοι
καθάπερ ἐτησίαι τινές εἰσιν οὗς καλοῦσι Ἀευκονότους" αἴθριοι
γὰρ. καὶ ἀσυννεφεῖς, ὡς ἐπίπαν-----τὸν βορέαν ἐπιπνεῖν τῷ
νότῳ, τὸν δὲ νότον μὴ τῷ βορέᾳ"----ζῶσι δ᾽ ἀπὸ ἀκρίδων, ἃς
οἱ ἐαρινοὶ λίβες καὶ ζέφυροι. πνέοντες μεγάλοι, συνελαύνου-
σιν εἰς τοὺς τόπους τούτους---Ὑπὸ δὲ τὴν ἐαρινὴν ἰσημερίαν,
ὅτε λίβες παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς καὶ ζέφυροι πνέουσι, παμμεγεθῶν
ἀκρίδων πλῆθος ἀμύθητον... μετὰ τῶν ἀνέμων TaparyiveTat—
Kara yap τὴν ἐαρινὴν ὥραν παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ζέφυροι καὶ λίβες
παμμεγέθεις ἐκρίπτουσιν ἐκ τῆς ἐρήμου πλῆθος ἀκρίδων ἀμύ-
θητον. This wind, from its bringing the birds of pas-
sage, Aristotle and Pliny call ornithian, or chelidonian:
ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ μετὰ TAS χειμερινὰς τροπὰς πνέουσιν οἱ ὀρνι-
θίαι" καὶ γὰρ οὗτοι ἐτησίαι εἰσὶν ἀσθενεῖς" ἐλάττους δὲ καὶ
ὀψιαίτεροι τῶν ἐτησίων πνέουσιν" ἑβδομηκοστῆ yap (which
is dated from the τροπαὶ χειμεριναὶ, or winter solstice)
ἄρχονται πνεῖν". Spirant autem et a bruma, cum vo-
eantur Ornithiz ; sed leniores, et paucis diebus—Favo-
nium quidam ad viil. Kalendas Martii Chelidoniam
vocant, ab hirundinis visu; nonnulli vera Ornithian,
uno et LxXxX. die post brumam, ab adventu avium,
flantem per dies novem * 5.
* Harduin reads herein Pliny but Pliny took the statement
uno et Lx. die post brumam: from Aristotle, who speaks of
n Lib. xi. 2. ° Pliny, H.N. ii. 47. p Theophrastus, De Ventis, 404.
ad principium et ad calcem. ᾳ Strabo, xvi. 4. δ. 12. 411. Agatharchides, apud
Geographos Veteres, i. 42. Diodorus Sic. iii. 28. * Aristotle, ut supra.
* Pliny, H.N. ii. 48. 47.
σ 3
QZ Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
Accordingly Josephus speaks of the south wind as
blowing in a given instance, at the time of the recap-
ture of Masada‘, on the fifteenth of Xanthicus, Tues-
day, April 11, U.C. 826; and Solomon, Canticles iv.
16, alludes to both the north and the south as winds
peculiar to the vernal quarter, and wont to succeed
each other; Awake O north wind! and come thou
south! blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof
may flow out. Moreover, the Indian caravans, which
set out upon their return to Egypt between the end of
December and the middle of January in every year,
upon entering the Red sea, which they did after forty
days’ voyage, are said to have finished the rest of the
journey, which took up thirty days’ more ", africo vel
austro; each of them a monsoon, or trade wind. On
this principle those winds must have begun and con-
tinued to blow, in the Red sea, contiguous to Judea,
seventy days after the beginning of January; that is,
until as late as the first or second week in March:
which would be the beginning of the dry season in
that country *.
the seventieth day after the
winter solstice.
* According to Mr. Harmer,
both Pococke and Maillet attest
that the people in Egypt scarce-
ly eat any thing, during the
months of April and May, but
fish and vegetables; the great
heats taking away their appetite
for any sort of flesh meat. (Vol.
ii. 327. Ch. ix. Obs. xii.)
The cause of these heats, ac-
cording to Maillet, is the blow-
ing of the south wind; which
sets in in April. (See p. 445.)
Cf. vol. iv. 295. 299. chap. ix.
τ Bell. Jud. vii. vill. 5. ix. t.
Solinus, Polyhistor, liv. §. 9, ro.
Obs. clxxix. and 316. Obs.
clxxxill.
Mr. Harmer (p. 327, 328) ex-
plains the murmuring of the Isra-
elites, Numbers xi. 4,5, and their
pining for the fish and fruits of
Egypt, on this principle. Num-
bers x. 11. 33, this would be in
May or June.
If such winds commonly set
in in Egypt in the spring quar-
ter of the year, they could
scarcely fail to affect Judea in
a similar manner. And this is
a remarkable coincidence not
only in illustration of the pre-
u Pliny, H. N. vi. 26. Vide also
Notices of time supplied by Luke xii. 23
Laying these testimonies together, we may fairly
come to the conclusion that the south wind’s com-
mencing to blow was a natural indication of the ap-
proach of the dry, and therefore of the close of the
rainy, season in Judza: as the appearance of the
cloud was of the reverse. If so, our Lord intended to
reproach his hearers with not being able from the
signs of the times, as a case in point, to discover that
this was the last and concluding period of his min-
istry. For there was truly something, and there had
been for some time past, in his manner and demeanour,
which might have warranted this presumption. His
diligence, activity, and earnestness ever since the last
feast of Tabernacles, up to the present circuit, were
sufficient to have raised the reflection that his time
was at hand; that the exigency of the occasion was
pressing; that the intermediate period was short, and
no part of it was to be idly or unprofitably spent. He
delivered more discourses, he spake more parables, he
wrought more miracles, and perhaps he visited more
places, within the last three months of his ministry,
than ever within an equal time before. St. Luke’s
Gospel, which in less than nine chapters comprised the
account of two years and nine months previously, is
taken up, for more than fourteen chapters, with the
history of these two or three months alone subse-
quently. Within this period, too, the Seventy had
been sent out; that is, the service, before rendered by
the Twelve, was increased sixfold by this second mis-
sion: and our Lord himself was now following in their
sent subject, but also as casting
light upon that scene on the
lake of Galilee, related John
xxi, the time of which was either
April or early in May.
The existence of hot winds
in Judea in the spring, is fur-
ther implied by the allusions to
the heat in harvest ; sometimes
such as to be fatal. See Prov.
x. 5, according to the ο΄. 2 Kings
iv. 18---Σ ο. Judith viii. 3.
Cc 4
24 Dissertation Thirty-fourth.
track, and visiting personally either all or most of the
places which had been recently evangelized by them.
The same conclusion, respecting the nature of the
present time, is suggested also by the last member of
the division, beginning, And why, even of yourselves,
do ye not judge of that is just? The reasoning, imme-
diately subjoined, supposes two parties; a creditor
who is reclaiming, and a debtor who is withholding,
the same just debt. It supposes that the creditor,
after trying every other expedient in vain, is having
recourse to the law, and bringing his debtor before the
judge *: it supposes that the two parties are actually
on the way to the court of justice; but not yet arrived
there. It supposes, consequently, a remaining in-
terval, but a short and finite one; within which it is
still possible for the refractory party to make up the
matter, by satisfying the debt of his own accord; and
so stopping all further proceedings. But it supposes
that, if he persists in his obstinacy to the last, and the
case comes before the judge, there will be no longer ~
the means of retreat; the law must take its usual
course: the judge will deliver him to the exactor; the
exactor will consign him to prison; and he will never
come out from thence until he have repaid the utter-
most farthing.
* The Roman law allowed
the plaintiff (especially in cases
of debt) to deal in this summary
manner with the defendant. Va-
lerius Maximus, ii. i. 5: Sed
quo matronale decus verecundiz
munimento tutius esset, in jus
vocanti matronam corpus ejus at-
tingere non permiserunt: which
of course must have been allow-
able with the persons of the
other sex.
Hence, Horace, Sermonum i.
ix. 77. Rapit in jus: clamor
utringue: | Undique concursus.
And ii. iii. 72. Cum rapies in
jus malis ridentem alienis. Ju-
venal, x. 87. Et pavidum in
jus | Cervice obstricta dominum
trahat. Ibid. xiii. 108. Trahere
immo ultro ac vexare paratus.
Plinius, Panegyricus, 36. §. 3:
Dicitur actori atque etiam pro-
curatori tuo: In jus veni: se-
quere ad tribunal. Arrian in
Epictetum, i. cap. 29.154: ἀλλ᾽
εἴληπταί μού τις τοῦ ἱματίου, καὶ ἕλ..
κει με εἰς τὴν ἀγοράν᾽ K,T.A.
Notices of time supplied hy Luke xi. — 25
Now, all this was applicable to the case of our Lord,
and of the Jewish people; the former of whom, upon
the strength of sufficient evidence, had long been
claiming to be received as their Messiah, and the
latter, notwithstanding this evidence, had long been
refusing to receive him as such. But it was applicable
only on the further supposition that, at this present
time, our Lord was making a last and a final appeal
to the same people, with a view to their conversion ;
that the period both of his own ministry, and of their
probation, was fast drawing to its close: beyond which
should the national impenitence be protracted, they
must expect to be given up to the penal consequences
of an obstinate unbelief. This part, therefore, leads to
the same conclusion as the rest of the chapter before it.
DISSERTATION XXXV.
On the incident relating to the Galileans, Luke xii. 1-9.
‘THe connection of this section with the preceding
chapter, which would otherwise be the first thing to
require pointing out, has been demonstrated already.
The phrase ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ καιρῷ, as equivalent to ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ
καιρῷ, at the seff-same season, instead of at the same
season, is among the peculiar idioms of St. Luke;
and by its occurrence here ascertains the time of the
following account to be directly consecutive upon the
preceding. This allusion, then, to the fate of the Ga-
lileans took place soon after the previous discourse ;
and the matter of fact alluded to, if we proceed to ex-
amine it, will perhaps be found to conspire with that
discourse itself, in leading to the same conclusion, which
the consideration of the discourse enabled us to deduce
in the preceding Dissertation.
With a view to this examination I am not aware
that it makes much difference whether we suppose
the Galileans in question to be some of the sect, who
are known in contemporary history by their relation
to Judas, surnamed the Galilean; or certain of the
people of Galilee. 'The same conclusions would follow
in either case; yet the latter, and not the former, is
indisputably the more correct opinion.
For first, when a word possesses both a general and
proper,and also a particular and improper signification,
like this of the Galileans, it is scarcely possible that it
should be used ἁπλῶς, as it is here, except in the for-
a Ch. vii. 21. X. 21. Xil. 12. xiii. 31. xx. 19. xxiii. 12. xxiv. 13. 33.
Fate of the Galileans, Luke xiii. 1-9. Q7
mer. Those, for whom St. Luke was writing, might
very well comprehend what was meant by the people
of Galilee; but could not, without some further ex-
planation, understand what was intended by the fol-
lowers of Judas of Galilee.
Secondly, the name of Galileans, as descriptive of any
such sect, occurs no where in the Gospels: the principles
of the sect may often be alluded to, but the name of it is
regularly kept out of sight. St. Luke in particular sup-
presses even the name of the Herodians, which neither
St. Matthew nor St. Mark does; though the principles of
that sect, as the second of the passages cited below
serves to demonstrate ), if they were not the same with
the principles of the Galileans, bordered very closely
upon them.
The truth is, the denomination of Galileans was
never the peculiar name of their sect: it may be given,
indeed, to their founder, as at Acts v. 37, in reference
either to his supposed country, or to the persons of
whom his followers, at the time, principally consisted ;
but as a specific designation for his party, it is as little
to be met with in Josephus as in the Gospels. Judas
himself was a Gaulanite, ἐκ πόλεως ὄνομα Vapadrta*°:
though he may also be called the Galilean ; and if his
party had any distinctive appellation, it was that of
the Zealots or Sicarii. As such they are enumerated
by Josephus, in their proper place, among the other
sects of the Jews’. But even the Zealots were a
* Golan in Bashan, mentioned For the site of Gamala in lower
Joshua xx. 8, gave name in after Gaulanitis, see Josephus, De
time to the district of Gaulani- Bello, iv. i. 1.
tis, or Batanea, of J osephus.
b Luke vi. 11. xx. 20. e Ant. xviii. i. 1. Cf. ibid. 6. xx. v. 2. Bell. ii.
villi, I. xvii. 8. d Ant. xviil. i. r—o. Bell. ii. viii. 1—14. vii. viii. τς
28 Dissertation Thirtyfifth.
branch of the Pharisees: and their founder was Zadok
the Pharisee, as much as Judas the Galilean.
Thirdly, it may very well be questioned whether,
after the rise and dispersion of the party, U.C. 760,
until near the time of the Jewish war, when it again
started into being, the sect of the Zealots existed ex-
cept in abeyance. The attempt of Judas was speedily
followed by his death; and the reasoning of Gamaliel in
the Acts necessarily supposes that both he and his fol-
lowers had come to nothing. Had not this been notori-
ously the fact, his very example, as a case in point, would
have made against him. At the time of our Saviour’s
trial before Pilate®, he was plainly charged with
maintaining the principles of Judas; but he was not
himself called either a Zealot or a Galilean. In Jose-
phus too, though certain of the sons or descendants of
Judas may be alluded to at intermediate periods, and
on distinct occasions f, yet no overt act similar to the
first insurrection, U.C. 760, in which any of his party
or his family were concerned, can be found on record,
prior to U.C. 819, when Manahem, a descendant of
his, it is true, seized upon Masada8, and usurped the
tyranny of his countrymen, at the outset of the Jewish
war.
It was not, in fact, possible that in peaceful and
quiet times such a sect could be tolerated for a mo-
ment. Their principles led directly to anarchy and
insubordination. It was a point of conscience with
them to disclaim the authority of the Roman emperor,
or of his procurators ; to withhold the payment of tri-
bute; to resist, in short, the imposition of any foreign
yoke, and to acknowledge no master but God. From
the time, therefore, of the census of Quirinius and of
e Luke xxiii. 2. f Ant. xx.v. 2. Bell. vii. viii. 1. g Bell. ii. xvii. 8.
Fate of the Galileans, Luke xiii. 1-9. 29
the mission of Coponius, the civil constitution of Judza
and this sect could not both subsist together; their
principles on the one hand allowed of no compromise
between liberty or death; the stability of the existing
government on the other, none between its own entire
ascendancy and their utter annihilation. If the Gali-
leans had survived the first contest, the Roman yoke
must have been for ever shaken off: if the Roman go-
vernment triumphed, the Galileans must have perished
in the struggle.
Fourthly, it is probable, from xiii. 31, that Jesus
was at this very time in Galilee ; and it is certain that
he must have been somewhere in the dominions of
Herod. This circumstance night account for the com-
munication, xiii. 1 itself; but it supposes that the suf-
ferers alluded to were inhabitants of Galilee. For
where would a misfortune, which had happened to Ga-
lileans in particular, be so likely to excite an interest
as in Galilee? and about whom were the people of
Galilee so likely to feel an interest, as about their own
countrymen ?
Fifthly, the reasoning, which our Lord grounds upon
the communication made to him, must be decisive whom
it refers to. He opposes these Galileans, who had pe-
rished, as a part, to the Galileans, who still survived, as
a whole; and he urges the fact of what had befallen the
part, as a warning of what might be expected by the
whole. There can be no doubt that, in the latter in-
stance, he means the people of Galilee; for he identifies
them with his hearers at the time: and consequently
there can be as little that he meant them also in the
former. In like manner, directly after», he opposes a
certain number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the
rest of the people of the same city; and from the fact
h Ch. xiii. 4.
30 Dissertation Thirty-fifth.
of what had befallen the former, he derives the same in-
ference of what, unless they repented, might be expected
by the latter. In each instance, a part is opposed to
a whole; a less number to a greater; but each as of
the same kind and both as included within the same
complex. We may take it for granted therefore that
the persons alluded to here were no partisans of
Judas of Galilee; but strictly and properly Gali-
leans.
Again, it seems equally reasonable to conclude that,
whatever had befallen them in general, it was some-
thing which had befallen them recently. An event
like this would naturally be talked about only as soon
as it happened ; and those who apprised our Saviour
of it now, it is manifest, could not suppose that he was
aware of it already. His own language is in favour of
this conclusion: Think ye, that these Galileans were
sinners above all the Galileans, that they have suffered
such things ? When he is referring to a fact, of unques-
tionably more ancient date, his language is perceptibly
different : Or they, the eighteen, on whom the tower
in Siloam fed/,* and slew them, think ye that these
were offenders, above all that were dwelling at Jeru-
salem ?
Again, whatever had befallen them in particular, it
was something which had befallen them innocently ;
that is, they had not brought it upon themselves. The
very construction, put upon their misfortune, seems to
be a proof of this. If they had been anywise instrumental
to it, it would not have been accidental; and if it had
not been accidental, it could not have been construed
* That the pool of Siloah was of this pool, historically, which
close to the walls of Jerusalem occurs in the Old Testament :
appears from Nehemiah 111. 15: though Isaiah refers to its wa-
the first instance of the mention _ ters, viii. 6.
Fate of the Galileans, Luke xi. 1-9. 31
into a judgment for sin. These men must have pe-
rished at a time, and in a manner, which humanly
speaking would acquit them of all blame, as having
drawn down their own death; and would resolve it
solely into the controlling providence of God.
Again, there is no proof in contemporary history of
any disturbance in Jerusalem, the scene of which was
not principally, if not exclusively, the temple; and the
time of which was not, still more invariably, about the
period of some feast. Μάλιστα yap ἐν ταῖς εὐωχίαις αὐτῶν
στάσις ἅπτεταιϊ. Such disturbances always took place
when the Jews were assembled in greater numbers
than usual: and they were never so assembled, except
before and during the feasts‘. Now the scene of
the outrage upon these Galileans was manifestly the
temple; for the outrage occurred in the midst of sacri-
fice; either of ¢hezr sacrifices, or of the sacrifices them-
selves, according as we choose to render τῶν θυσιῶν av-
τῶν. And if Pilate also was present at Jerusalem, the
time when it happened was the time of some feast.
Ceesarea, and not Jerusalem, was the seat of the civil
government!; so that he would never be ordinarily
resident at Jerusalem, except during the periods of the
feasts; when, for the same reason that a guard was
always kept stationed in Antonia, (ἔνοπλοι δὲ ἀεὶ τὰς
ἑορτὰς παραφυλάττουσιν, ὡς μή τι νεωτερίζοι τὸ πλῆθος
συνηθροισμένον ™, that is, because the risk of extraordi-
nary danger required extraordinary precaution to pre-
vent it,) the supreme magistrate also took care to be on
the spot.
Again, the case of Barabbas, as specified in each of
i Bell. Jud. i. iv. 3. k Ant. xvii. ix. 3. x. 2. Bell. ii. i. 3. iii. 1. Ant.
XVill. ii. 2. xx. v. 3. Bell. ii. xii. 1. ι Tacitus, Hist. ii. 79. Acts xxiii. 23—
end. xxv. 1—6. 13. Ant. Jud. xviii. iii. r. iv. 3. Bell. ii. ix. 2.4. Ant. xx.
v. 4. viii. 7. Bell. ii. xii. 2. 5. xiii. 7. xiv. 4. 6. m Bell. ii. xii. 1. Ant.
xx. v. 3. Vide also Bell. v. v. 8.
32 Dissertation Thirty-fifth.
the Gospels, is a proof that, before the last Passover,
there had been a tumult in the city, accompanied by
bloodshed ": for he was still in prison, on that account,
at the time of our Saviour’s condemnation: and the
same case is equally a proof that the tumult itself was
a recent occurrence; for though both he and his ac-
complices had been imprisoned, none of them had yet
been executed, on that account. The bloodshed which
had accompanied this disturbance, it is reasonable to
suppose was the bloodshed of Roman soldiers, not of
native Jews; in which case, nothing was more likely
to have provoked the retaliatory vengeance of the
governor. ‘There is not the least ground for imagin-
ing that Barabbas, who seems to have been so popular
a character notwithstanding the recent outrage, at the
time of our Lord’s crucifixion, had headed one party
of Jews against another; or that the contest, which
terminated in death to some, had lain between Jews
on both sides, and not between Jews and the Roman
military.
Again, at the time of our Lord’s trial, not only Pi-
late, but Herod also, the tetrarch of Galilee, was in
Jerusalem ὁ. There is no reason to suppose that, be-
fore this, the latter was a regular attendant at the
feasts: on the contrary, if Luke xxiii. 8 be true, it
follows demonstratively that he had not attended either
the feast of Dedication, or the feast of Tabernacles, last ;
at both of which times Jesus had been in Jerusalem,
teaching and performing miracles upon the spot. But,
if he was now in attendance against his usage, he must
have had express reasons to bring him there; especially
as he was accompanied by a train of soldiers? ; which,
in a season of profound peace and tranquillity, like the
" Luke xxiii. 1g. Matt. xxvii. 16. Mark xv. 7. John xviii. 40. © Luke
xxiii. 7. p Ib. 11.
Fate of the Galileans, Luke xiii. 1-9. 33
present, except for some urgent reason, would be a still
more extraordinary circumstance.
Again, there was at this time a quarrel in existence
between Herod and Pilate4; the cause of which con-
sequently must have been some ground of offence, on
one side or on both sides. But it would-not be easy
to conceive what offence Herod could have given to
Pilate, at least in his official capacity; for an offence
to Pilate, in that capacity, would also have been an of-
fence to the emperor. It is very possible on the other
hand, that Pilate might have given offence to Herod.
The mere circumstance that the one was the tetrarch
of Galilee, and the other the representative of the
majesty of Czsar, without any reference to the per-
sonal character of the parties, might suffice to account
for that.
Again, the quarrel in question was made up this
day, and in consequence of something which passed
this day ; whence we may infer that it was a quarrel
of no long standing: the parties, between whom it
existed, had probably never met since it had taken
place, until they came together on this occasion in Je-
rusalem. If it was so speedily made up now when they
did meet, had they met before this time, we may sup-
pose it would have been made up sooner.
Again, it is impossible to peruse the account of St.
Luke, xxiii. 6-12, and not to come to the conclusion
that the moving cause to the reconciliation was the
mission of Jesus to Herod by Pilate. Now this mis-
sion is expressly attributed to the discovery that Jesus
belonged to the jurisdiction of Herod. The mission,
therefore, was a compliment paid to the jurisdiction of
Herod; it was as much as to declare that, without
the consent of Herod, Pilate would not interfere in
q Luke xxiii. 12.
VOU.. III. D
94 Dissertation Thirty-ifth.
the disposal of a person, whose proper master Herod
might appear to be. And Herod understood it accord-
ingly; for by first sitting in judgment on our Lord
himself, and then sending him back to Pilate, he both
asserted his authority over him, and resigned it volun-
tarily to Pilate. But if the cause of the final re-
conciliation was this deference to the rights of Herod,
it becomes an argument that the cause of the misun-
derstanding previously was some injury done to those
rights; which could not be repaired except by a pub-
lic acknowledgment like this. ‘The reputation of Jesus
would necessarily render it an important question to
whose jurisdiction in particular he ought to be con-
sidered amenable; and in sending him upon this oeca-
sion to Herod, Pilate was not only flattering the pride
of that prince, but ministering also to the gratifica-
tion of a wish to see Jesus, which he had long before
conceived.
Again, it may be inferred from Luke xiii. 31-35,
that our Lord could not be far from Jerusalem—that
is, that his circuit was fast drawing to its close—when
he heard of this misfortune of the Galileans: and by the
time of his arrival at Bethany, six days before the Pass-
over, numbers of the Jews were already assembled at
Jerusalemt. These are described as Jews from the
country; and the purpose for which, they went up, so
much before the time, was to purify themselves against
the feast. There can be no question that considera-
tions of this kind—such as the close of the vow of
separation; the purification of women after childbirth,
whom their husbands would naturally accompany ;
besides various accidental pollutions, dependent upon
circumstances—would bring up numbers to Jerusalem,
some a greater, others a less time, before the feast, in
r John xi. 55.
Fate of the Galileans, Luke xi. 1-9. 35
every year’. Οὔτε “γὰρ λεπροῖς, says Josephus, οὔτε
γονοῤῥοίοις, οὔτε “γυναιξὶν ἐπεμμήνοις, οὔτε τοῖς ἄλλως με-
μιασμένοις, ἐξῆν τῆσδε τῆς θυσίας μεταλαμβάνειν. It is
not to be supposed that any one, however previously
clean, would delay his arrival later than the tenth of
Nisan; and there is a parallel case, mentioned acci-
dentally by Josephus, which proves that the resort of
worshippers against the Passover, was going forward
on and before the eighth": ἀθροιζομένου τοῦ λαοῦ πρὸς
τὴν τῶν ᾿Αζύμων ἑορτήν" ὀγδόη δ᾽ ἣν Ξανθικοῦ μηνός.
Laying these several particulars together, I think we
may come to the following inferences partly with an ab-
solute certainty, and partly with an high degree of pro-
bability: first, that a contest had taken place in Jerusa-
lem, arising out of a disturbance of the public peace, be-
tween the Jews and the Roman soldiers, attended by
blood-shed on both sides, the scene of which was par-
tially the temple; secondly, that this was the sedition of
Barabbas, for which he was still in prison, when Jesus
was brought before Pilate; thirdly, that some of the Ga-
lileans, the native subjects of Herod, while engaged in
the act of sacrificing, had been innocently sufferers from
it; fourthly, that this violence done to them was the
cause of the enmity existing between Herod and Pi-
late, and the reason why the former was present in
Jerusalem, at the time of the last Passover, with an
armed force, for his own protection, or for that of his
subjects ; fifthly, that all this was of recent occurrence,
between the time denoted by John xi. 54 and xii. 1:
after the commencement of our Lord’s final circuit, and
not long before its close.
It is some confirmation of the connection between
this incident, thus alluded to, Luke xiii. 1, and what
8 Vide 2 Chron. xxix. xxx. t Bell. Jud. vi. ix. 3. u Bell. vi. v. 3.
D 2
36 Dissertation Thirty-fifth.
subsequently passed at our Lord’s examination, xxiii.
6-12, that the former does serve to clear up the latter,
and that both are related by St. Luke, and by him
alone. There is no proof, it is true, in Josephus of
any disturbance in Jerusalem, about this time: but
neither is there any account, given by him, of the
administration of Pilate generally, except after the
close of our Lord’s personal history, and so far as re-
gards one or two particulars—his introduction of the
ensigns into the city; his sequestration of the corban ;
and his violence towards the Samaritans: the last of
which led to his removal from office, and the two for-
mer, or at least the latter of them, as I apprehend, had
not yet taken place. Nor is any greater objection
deducible from the silence of Josephus as to this fact
in particular, than from his silence with respect to
Christianity in general. If the fact in question was
connected with the sedition of Barabbas, then the his-
tory of Barabbas was too intimately connected also with
the personal history of Jesus Christ, to be noticed dis-
tinctly by an author who has preserved so deep, and
undoubtedly so deliberate a secresy, with respect to
this last.
It seems to have been ordained by Providence, and
with an evident fitness and expediency, that the whole
of our Lord’s public ministry until this time should
be transacted with no such events as these: nor can I
help thinking that the occurrence of something of the
kind, at last, was more permissive than accidental; and
-as providential as any thing before it. For had not
this been the case, no such notorious criminal as Bar-
abbas could have been in confinement at the time of
the trial of our Lord; and if Barabbas had not then
been in prison, whom could the Jews have demanded to
be released instead of the Christ? and without this pre-
Fate of the Galileans, Luke xiii. 1-9. 37
ference of Barabbas to the Christ, what room could
there have been for that last and most convincing tes-
timony to the national impenitence and guilt, which
was given by their deliberate preference of a robber
and an outlaw, a ringleader of sedition, with hands
imbrued in blood; not merely to a person whose inno-
cence was undoubted, and the purity of whose charac-
ter was unimpeachable, but to their own Messiah, the
Prince of peace, and Saviour of mankind ?
ps3
DISSERTATION XXXVI.
On the question concerning divorce, Matt. xix. 3-12. Mark
x. 2-12.
Tue reason why St. Luke has omitted all mention
of this question, and of the answer to it, appears to be,
because a similar, and very probably a recent declaration
on the same subject is recorded by him®, not long before
the point of time” where his narrative again joins
St. Matthew and St. Mark. In the account of the two
latter Evangelists themselves, compared together, there
is the same evidence of omissions on the one hand, and
of supplements on the other, as repeatedly occurs else-
where; and this fact being once established, it will
naturally go some way to reconcile the differences be-
tween them.
For example, when Jesus had replied to the question
of the Pharisees—which was put in public, and an-
swered in public, he retired into some private house.
There is no notice, either express or by implication, of this
fact in St. Matthew. While he was in this house, the
disciples, according to the same authority, renewed the
inquiry concerning the question: neither is this fact
noticed by St. Matthew. Yet what he attributes to
the disciples ὁ must have made a part of this conversa-
tion in private: it has all the appearance of a remark,
produced by the repetition to them in particular of
what had lately been pronounced in the hearing of all in
common. If so, it becomes a proof that our Lord, at this
period in St. Matthew’s account, was actually in pri-
vate; and this conclusion is confirmed by the incident
a Ch. xvi. 18. b Ch. xviii. 15. ο Mark x. Io. ad Ch. xix. Io.
On the question concerning divorce. 39°
next subjoined, the bringing of little children to Christ*;
for that transaction took place after he came into the
house, and before he left it again; that is, while he
was still within‘.
We may conclude therefore that the final end, which
St. Mark had here in view, was to supply certain par-
ticulars in a common account, omitted by St. Matthew.
Hence he is in some respects fuller, and in others
more concise, than he: fuller, where St. Matthew
had been most defective, and more concise, where
he had been most minute. On this principle they may
easily be accommodated to each other.
For first, the question, according to St. Matthew,
stood thus—Ei ἔξεστιν ἀνθρώπῳ ἀπολῦσαι τὴν “γυναῖκα
αὑτοῦ κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν ; according to St. Mark—Ei
ἔξεστιν ἀνδρὶ “γυναῖκα ἀπολῦσαι; in which, consequently,
there is an omission of κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν : and this is
an omission which must have been intentional. For
the decision of our Lord himself % shews that, on one
account, the account of fornication, which in a married
woman amounts to adultery, it 7s lawful to put
away a wife. The question, then, Is it lawful for an
husband to put away his wife? so expressed, might
be answered in the affirmative; the question, Is it law-
ful for a man to put away his wife, on any account ?
must be answered in the negative. The true drift of
the question therefore, as stated by St. Mark, supposes
the statement of it by St. Matthew to be carried along
with his.
Secondly, in reply to the question, our Lord, ac-
cording to St. Mark, began with referring to the de-
cision of Moses; according to St. Matthew, he pro-
ceeded to answer it himself*. If he did both these
e Ch. xix. 13—15. f Mark x. 10. 17. & Matt. xix. g.
h Mark x.3. Matt. xix. 4.
D 4
40 Dissertation Thirty-sixth.
things, there is no inconsistency between these state-
ments; and in favour of that supposition we may
argue as follows.
When, in other instances, a question was put to our
Saviour, which either had been actually decided by
the Law, or was easily to be collected from it, we
observe him refer in the first place to the Law‘; and
as this was a case in point, it might naturally be ex-
pected that he would do the same now. But had he
never done so on any other occasion, there were yet
special reasons why he should do so on this.
It is notorious that liberty of divorce had been con-
ceded by the Law of Moses *: it is certain also that,
at the first institution of marriage, it had been pro-
nounced inseparable. It follows, therefore, that the
concession of the Law had been contrary to the ori-
ginal institution ; and consequently was a special indul-
gence, vouchsafed to the Jews. Hence, as there was
once a time when no such indulgence existed, so
there might be again a time when it should be re-
pealed.
If then the original law was to be revived by the
Gospel, and made binding on Christians, the tempo-
rary indulgence, granted subsequently to the Jews,
was necessarily to cease. The design therefore of refer-
ring in the first place to the decision of the Law might |
be to give greater solemnity to the decision of Christ. It
would intimate so much the more clearly both the fact
of the abrogation of the existing commandment, and the
grounds on which it was to take place. What did Moses
command you? was consequently a natural, and even
a necessary question, before any declaration of our
Lord himself. The judgment, which he meant to
i Matt. xix. 16,17, 18. Luke x. 25, 26. k Deut. xxiv. 1, 2.
On the question concerning divorce. 41
pronounce, would apparently commit his authority
with the authority of Moses; and he proposed to shew
beforehand that this committal was only apparent, not
real. The Mosaic injunction itself was an extraordi-
nary and a temporary concession; not more opposed
to his own decision, than to an original and prior law,
recorded by Moses himself; which, as it had once pre-
vailed before the dispensation, so notwithstanding that,
might recover its ascendency again.
The interrogation recorded even by St. Matthew',
τί οὖν Μωσῆς ἐνετείλατο, x. τ. Δ. contains afi implicit al-
lusion to some such reference concerning the dictum of
the Law. The parties, who put that question, were the
same as before; and it is manifest that they put it by
way of objection to the decision just pronounced. Our
Saviour, it is true, had anticipated the objection in the
decision itself; but that the Pharisees should not have
been satisfied with zs reasons would be nothing extra-
ordinary: and if they thought proper to start the same
difficulty afresh, it would be just as natural that he
should reply to it as he had done before. They had not
originally put their question out of a genuine deference
to his authority, or with a candid disposition to receive
instruction from him on an important article of duty; but
from some insidious motive; either to elicit a declaration,
which they knew would be repugnant to the mandate of
the Law, or to render Jesus obnoxious to the people.
They could not be ignorant that, twice at least in the
course of his ministry, once in the sermon on the
mount, and again still more recently in their own
hearing ™, he had peremptorily laid down a new prin-
ciple of conduct upon this very. point.
Nor was there any thing more palatable to the
people at large, nor yet more grossly abused, than
1 Ch, xix. 7. τῇ Matt. v. 31, 32. Luke xvi. 14. 18.
42 Dissertation Thirty-sixth.
this liberty of divorce. The license of polygamy al-
lowed by the doctors of the Law, and practised by
the Jews every where, was almost unlimited. Jus-
tin Martyr tells us that the former openly permitted
any man to have four or five wives; and that the
latter freely availed themselves of this permission,
marrying as many as they pleased™. Besides this,
however, the right of divorce was carried to an excess
which rendered the marriage union, whatever it might
be in profession, little better in practice than the liberty
of promiscuous concubinage. There was no conceivable
reason, however slight, for which a man might not put
away one woman, and marry another. Tvvaixos τῆς
συνοικούσης βουλόμενος διαζευχθῆναι, καθ᾽ ἃς δηποτοῦν ai-
τίας" πολλαὶ δ᾽ ἂν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τοιαῦται “γίνοιντο 5. Jose-
phus himself is an example? to prove the universality of
the practice of divorce, as well as the slightness of the
reasons for which it might be resorted to. With respect
however to the grounds of separation, considered justifia-
ble by the rabbis, pudet, prgetque ! If a wife had spoiled
her husband’s dinner—nay more, if she was no longer
to his liking, if he had found one that would suit him |
better—he was at liberty to put her away4. Schola
Schamai dicit, nemo repudiabit uxorem, nisi in ea re-
pertum fuerit quid inhonesti...Schola Hillelis dicit,
etiamsi combusserit decoctum ejus...R. Akiba dicit,
etiamsi illa pulchriorem inveniat aliam. And _ yet
while the husbands were allowed thus freely: to di-
vorce their wives, the wives were not permitted to di-
vorce their husbands.
On a subject like this, where the temporary indul-
gence, permitted by the Law, had come to be so fla-
grantly abused, it is not credible that our Saviour,
n Dialogus, 423. 1. 8—11. 436. 1. 23—31. o Ant. Jud. iv. viii. 23.
p Vita, 76. ᾳ Mishna, iii. 358. το.
On the question concerning divorce. 43
as often as there was occasion for it, would hesitate to
enforce or repeat the decision, the most worthy of him-
self. Accordingly he repeats it now, as it might be ex-
pected a solemn and ultimate declaration would be re-
peated, with more emphasis and distinctness of expres-
sion, with more weight of authority, and force of reason-
ing, than ever before. Yet for all this might not the
Pharisees in particular be convinced by it; and if hes
decision was in any manner opposed to the authority of
Moses, it is easy to see which they would affect to defer
to. There was no means, however, of answering our
_ Saviour, except by appealing to Moses; and though he
had met that appeal already, yet an argument, which
supposed any part of their law to be designed for a
temporary purpose, was not likely to satisfy them.
Nor is it more extraordinary that they should have
continued, or pretended to continue unconvinced, than
that the disciples of our Lord himself, from the strange-
ness, and probably the disagreeableness of his doctrine,
should have inquired about it again.
The arrangement, then, of the two narratives will
stand as follows:
I. Matt. xix. 3, Mark x. 2: the original question, as
recorded by St. Matthew.
II. Mark x. 3, 4,5: the interrogation of our Lord—
the reply to that interrogation—and the declaration
subjoined to the reply, shewing the grounds of the legal
injunction.
III. Matt. xix. 4, 5, 6, Mark x. 6, 7, 8,9: which
proceed in conjunction, down to the close of St. Mark’s
account of what passed in public; and may be har-
monized thus:
First, if we retain the interrogatory form of St. Mat-
thew, and supply the particle δὲ from St. Mark, οὐκ
44 Dissertation Thirty-sixth.
ἀνέγνωτε (de) ὅτι ὁ ποιήσας ἀπ᾽ “pxiis κτίσεως, ἄρσεν καὶ
θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτοὺς, ὁ Θεός;
Secondly, as supplied by St. Matthew, and as part
of the quotation from Genesis, καὶ εἶπεν (sc. ὁ Θεός)"
ἕνεκεν τούτου... down to ywpiCérw—which is verbatim
the same in both.
IV. Matt. xix. 7: the objection from the Law, as
repeated by the Pharisees—xix. 8: our Lord’s reply
to it, as before, but more concisely than before—xix.
9: a renewed declaration concerning the unlawfulness
of promiscuous divorce, similar to what had been pro-
nounced Matt. v. 31, 32, Luke xvi. 18, upon former
occasions, but not as yet on this occasion: which
concludes St. Matthew’s account of what passed in
public.
V. Mark x. 10,11,12: the renewal of the conversa-
tion with the disciples in private ; where at verses 11,
12, there is a clear reference to Matt. xix. 9, the con-
cluding declaration in public: which yet, without that,
would not have been intelligible.
VI. And, lastly, Matt. xix. 10, 11, 12: which will
close not only St. Matthew’s, but also the whole ac-
count. The remark of the disciples that it was better
not to marry at all, than to marry on such terms as
these, is manifestly such as might have been produced
by Mark x.11,12; and the reason why St. Matthew
has mentioned it after xix. 9 in particular, may be that
it followed upon the repetition of the same declaration
within, which had recently been pronounced without ;
and it was due to the same cause, the dislike of the
doctrine, or at least the surprise entertained at the
doctrine, whether as prescribed without to the people
or as repeated wethin to the disciples.
DISSERTATION XXXVII.
On the miracles performed at Jericho.
In the account of these miracles St. Luke is appa-
rently at variance with St. Mark, and St. Matthew ap-
parently with St. Luke and St. Mark*; the former, on
the question of place, or as to where the miracle was
performed; the latter, on the question of persons, or
who was the subject of the miracle, whether one person
or more.
St. Luke’s language is so clear as to the performance
of his miracle, before the procession of Jesus arrived
at Jericho, and St. Mark’s, as to the performance of
his, when the procession had passed through it, that it
would be a vain attempt to prove the locality of these
two events the same; or that either miracle was per-
formed as Jesus drew nigh to Jericho, or as Jesus was
leaving Jericho. It would be equally preposterous to
suppose that he made any stay at Jericho; and so
might perform one miracle as he first came thither,
and another, as he finally left it again. The first verse
of the nineteenth chapter of St. Luke is decisive that
Jesus passed through Jericho without stopping; or if
there is any doubt on this subject, the next Disserta-
tion, I trust, will place it beyond a question. The two
accounts, then, are still as much at variance as before;
relating to the course of one and the same procession
from the banks of the Jordan through Jericho without
interruption, until it stopped for a time with Zaccheus.
Or if the miracle in St. Luke is to be considered the
same with that in St. Mark, they are even more at va-
riance than before.
a Luke xviii. 35—43. Mark x. 46—52. Matt. xx. 2934.
46 Dissertation Thirty-seventh.
I know no means, therefore, of reconciling either of
them with the other, or both with St. Matthew, except
one; a mode of reconciliation, handed down from the
earliest times, and not more recommended by its anti-
quity than by its simplicity—-which is to suppose two
miracles, each at distinct times, and on a different in-
dividual *; the one, as our Lord was approaching to
Jericho, the other, as he was leaving it again; the
former, related by St. Luke, the latter by St. Mark,
and both, by St. Matthew; each, as distinctly related,
related in its proper place; and the two, as related
conjointly, not absolutely related out of theirs: for one
or the other of them, even in St. Matthew, must be re-
gularly related, though the other were not.
The general conciseness of this Evangelist, in the
account of miracles, has been often pointed out al-
ready; and on the principle of this conciseness, his
blending together the history of two miracles, the same
in kind, very similar in their circumstances, and al-
most contiguous in point of time; if any such events
really occurred; was ὦ priori to be expected from him:
in which case, it is much the most probable that he
would connect the history of the first performed, with
the account of the last; that is, would relate the last
performed in its place, and the first out of it, rather
than do the contrary. The approach of Jesus to
Jericho St. Matthew does not even mention; but the
departure from it again he does: unless therefore he
had purposely travelled out of his way, in order to
relate the first miracle for its own sake (to do which
would not have been consistent with his practice) he
had not even an opportunity of recording that, until
* Cf. Origen, iii. 732. Commentarius in Matt. tom. xvi. 12.
Theophylact, i. 108.C. In Matt. xx.
On the miracles performed at Jericho. 47
the time arrived for the history of the other. Nor,
when he is proceeding to recount them both, or to give
the history of one owt of its order, along with the his-
tory of the other zz it, does he employ any formula of
transition which establishes an immediate succession of
events. He ushers in the account merely by his idio-
matic expression, καὶ ἰδούθ: a phrase which, in num-
berless instances, is simply a note of admonition to the
reader, preparing him for something remarkable about
to be related, but not a note of time or sequence, refer-
ring him to the order and connection of events.
The Gospel of St. Mark coming after St. Matthew’s,
and every where closely treading in the steps of St.
Matthew’s, it was quite sufficient that St. Matthew had
recorded both the miracles in conjunction, to induce
St. Mark to relate only one of them in particular. St.
Luke’s Gospel coming after both their’s, and being writ-
ten with a perfect knowledge of the accounts of each,
it was equally sufficient to make him record only one
that St. Mark had recorded the other; and to make
him record this one in its proper place that St. Matthew
had recorded it, but with the other, out of its place.
The time of the dowb/e miracle in St. Matthew is clearly
the same with that of the seng/e miracle in St. Mark;
that is, the miracle on Bartimezeus, recorded by the latter,
is the second of the miracles, related by the former. By
restricting therefore zs account to this one miracle,
St. Mark still went along with St. Matthew; and by
specifying this as a single miracle, he not only went
along with him, but so far rectified his order ; for this
was to detach the one miracle from another of like
kind, but upon a different occasion, which St. Matthew
had combined with it. The approach to Jericho is not
mentioned by him, no more than by St. Matthew; so
b Ch. xx. 30.
48 Dissertation Thirty-seventh.
that, unless he had purposely chosen to relate the
other miracle also, he could have had no opportunity of
recording that, except in conjunction with the second.
But this his scrupulous regard for historical precision
would not allow him to do; nor in fact was it likely
that he would do it; for it would have been merely to
repeat what St. Matthew had done previously, and to
perpetuate the very anachronism, which, as it was, he
desired to remove. /T‘here was something also in the
case of the second blind man, different from that of
the first; as the very description given of him—vios
Tipaiov, Βαρ-τίμαιος, ὁ τυφλός ‘__jg alone sufficient to
prove: and this would be an additional reason for con-
fining the account of the miracle to him.
It remains then that the details of the first miracle,
as a part of the general narrative, could be given by
St. Luke alone. St. Matthew’s account, as to the num-
ber of the miracles, was complete; as to their order,
was irregular: St. Mark’s account, as to the order, was
regular; as to the number, was incomplete. St. Luke’s
serves an equal purpose with respect to both; filling
up the deficiency in St. Mark, and reducing to order
the irregularity in St. Matthew. The two single mi-
racles therefore of the later Evangelists are exactly
equivalent to the one double miracle of the earlier ;
and the accounts of the two former, laid together, will
be just coextensive with the account of the latter by
itself. Nor is there any thing in them separately consi-
dered, to militate against such a construction of their re-
lation to each other in common. Had St. Matthew af-
firmed that both his miracles were wrought after Jesus
left Jericho, then indeed St. Luke’s miracle could not
have been one of those, though it might still have been
ς Ch. x. 46. Cf. Theophylact, i. 229. D. In Mare. x.
On the miracles performed at Jericho. 49
a matter of fact. Had St. Luke. asserted that the name
_and description of Aas blind man were 'Timzus, the son
of Timzeus, Azs authority would have been committed
directly with St. Mark’s. But as it is, each account in
particular may be true; and all in common may be
consistent with each other.
The nature of the case is enough to prove that it
is by no means an improbable supposition, which
merely assumes that two blind men, neither of whom
had any means of subsistence except from the benevo-
lence of private charity, might be found sitting and
begging in the vicinity of a city like Jericho, in point
of size only one third, or not much more, less than
Jerusalem ὦ, and containing, probably, more than one
hundred thousand inhabitants; and upon two such
thoroughfares, as the road from the Jordan to Jericho
and from Jericho to Jerusalem. But, even in this
case, it is much more likely that they would be found
apart than in conjunction. The procession of our Sa-
viour would consequently pass by them at separate
times; and there is no circumstance in the situation,
behaviour, or treatment of the one, which was not α
priori to be just as much expected of the other. The
similarity then of the different accounts is no proof of
the identity of the occasions to which they belong; for
they could not have been otherwise than similar. It was
this very similarity which brought them readily within
the scope of St.Matthew’s plan of conciseness in such de-
tails as these, and induced him to blend them both into
one narrative. The particulars of the account, which he
has thus given in reference to both, must have been in-
dividually applicable to either of them. Both must have
been sitting by the road side, and must both have been
begging, when Jesus passed by; both must have inquired
ἃ Epiphanius, Operum i. 702. C. Manichei, Ixxxii.
VOL. IIT. E
50 Dissertation Thirty-seventh.
who was passing, and both must have been told that it
was Jesus of Nazareth; both must have implored his
mercy; both must have been rebuked by the people;
both must have cried out the more; both must have
been conducted to Christ; both must have been ques-
tioned alike; both must have returned the same an-
swer; both must have been restored to sight by a word
and a touch; and both must have followed him in the
way. Each I say must have done all these things,
according to St. Matthew, if either of them did: and
St. Luke or St. Mark has merely related of one of them,
what St. Matthew with equal truth had recorded of
the two.
DISSERTATION XXXVIII.
On the time of the arrival at Bethany—and on the day of the
procession to the T'’emple.
THE last division of the Gospel-history, dated from
the arrival at Bethany before the fourth Passover, and
extending to the day of the Ascension, abounds in difhi-
culties, and in controverted or controvertible points.
The time of the arrival at Bethany; the time of the
supper and the unction, which there took place; the
time of the procession to Jerusalem ; the time of the
cleansing of the temple; the time of the celebration of
the last supper : all these, and many more which it is not
necessary now to enumerate, are questions upon which
the utmost difference of opinion, and a corresponding
diversity of arrangement in the schemes of particular
harmonists, are seen to exist.
Yet these difficulties, great as they are, we must now
proceed to encounter. ‘The course of our subject has
brought us regularly down to the period when Jesus,
having formally made an end of his ministry in Galilee
and elsewhere, was about to complete it in Jerusalem
also; and at the same time to accomplish the work of
human redemption—the proper work which the Fa-
ther had given him to execute; the final end of his
coming into the world: which being over, the period
of his leaving the world and of his returning again to
the Father, with whom he was before he assumed flesh,
could not be far distant.
In the due prosecution of this subject, I shall enter
first upon the question of the time of the arrival at
Bethany; the determination of which is absolutely ne-
E 2
52 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
cessary to fix the beginning of Passion-week, and to
facilitate the arrangement of succeeding events.
The narratives of the first three Evangelists, from the
time when our Saviour passed through Jericho, to that of
his actual entry into Jerusalem, exhibit no interruption
in their continuity. In these narratives, then, there is
no intimation of any intermediate stay at Bethany;
much less of the date of the arrival there. Nor does
this silence imply that no interval actually took place
between the day of the arrival, and the day of the pro-
cession to the temple; no more than that the arrival
itself did not take place upon some definite day in
particular. It implies only that nothing took place be-
tween the arrival and the procession, which it might
be necessary or expedient for the former Gospels to
relate; it implies also that the interval in question was
short: and both these things, as we shall see by and
by, were actually matters of fact.
The precise date of the arrival, and the exact measure
of the interval between that event and the procession to
Jerusalem, which had thus been omitted by each of
the former Gospels, could be supplied only by the last.
Accordingly, the supplementary relation of that Gos-
pel, which has been so often exemplified already, is
critically illustrated in this instance also; for the no-
tice of time which is wanting in the first three Gospels
is found at xii. 1 of the fourth: ὁ οὖν ᾿Ιησοῦς, πρὸ ἐξ
ἡμερῶν τοῦ Πάσχα, ἦλθεν εἰς Βηθανίαν... The date of the
arrival at Bethany, and all the other consequences de-
ducible from it, depend upon the right construction of
this text.
Now with regard to such phrases as these, πρὸ ἐξ
ἡμερῶν τοῦ Ilacya, or, μεθ᾽ ἐξ ἡμέρας τοῦ Ilacxa, where
the prepositions of time, πρὸ or μετὰ, are constructed
with one substantive (denoting days, or weeks, or
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. δῷ
months, or years, pro re nata) in their proper case,
and another substantive serving as the material date,
to which, or from which, the computation proceeds,
the first observation that we may make is this: they
are not strictly classical ; that is, they are seldom, if
ever, to be met with in the earlier Greek authors, such
as Herodotus, Thucydides, or Xenophon ἢ, but only in
the later: the reason of which distinction is obvious ;
that they are not Greek idioms, but an imitation of the
Roman. Of this idiom in the Latin writers the follow-
ing are instances: Alterum...ante paucos triumphi; al-
terum post pauciores, amisit dies—Intra quinque con-
summati tanti operis dies—Ante quintum mensem di-
vortii—Intra sextum adoptionis diem—Post biduum
...exortis *. Analogous to this is the use of the pre-
positions ante or post, either with their proper case, as
Quadragesimum post annum—Ante tres et sexaginta
annos—or adverbially ἁπλῶς, as Biennio post—and the
like’, The Greek construction answerable to this
would be such as, καὶ μεθ᾽ ἡμέρας ἕξ.----καὶ μεθ᾽ ἡμέρας
ὀκτώ----πρὸ ... τούτων τῶν ἡμερῶν----πρὸ ἐτῶν δεκατεσσά-
ρων °—between which and the former, πρὸ ἕξ ἡμερῶν
τοῦ Ilacya, and the like, it is manifest that, as to the
principle of their construction, there can be no differ-
ence whatever.
The next observation which we may make is this:
* The only passage which 1
have met with in these histo-
rians, that seems to militate
against the assertion in ques-
tion, occurs at the beginning of
the Hellenica of Xenophon, §. 2:
> x47 \ A
pet ὀλίγον δὲ τούτων : a passage
which on this very account I
should agree with Koeppen in
considering suspicious, and
should correct either by omit-
ting the τούτων, or adding as he
proposes ὕστερον.
a Velleius Pat. i. το ii. 117. Suetonius, Claudius, 27. Galba, 17. Pliny,
H.N. ii. 47.
> Tacitus, Ann. xii. 27. xiii. 53.
Suetonius, Augustus, 26.
© Mark ix. 2. John xx. 26. Acts v. 36. 2 Cor. xii. 2.
E 3
δα. Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
notices of time, so expressed, are not to be understood
either znclusively, or exclusively, of both their extremes;
but ¢nclusively of the one, and exclusively of the other.
This assertion is notoriously true of the Roman idiom
in reckoning the days of the month; according to
which Ante diem sextum kalendas (for instance) of Jan-
uary would denote the sixth day inclusive of the first of
January ; not December 26, but December 27. Nor is it
less correct in reference to the application of the same
mode of computation to historical notices of time; which
is the proper rule to be followed,in interpreting the text
of St.John. I have illustrated the usage in question by
the production of passages below first from Latin au-
thors, and then from Greek ; the effect of which must
be to prove demonstratively that if St. John’s reckon-
ing is exclusive of the day of the arrival, it is inclusive
of the day of the Passover; and if it is exclusive of the
day of the Passover, it is zmclusive of the day of the
arrival: and in either case, if the day of the Passover
was the fourteenth of the Jewish Nisan, the day of the
arrival was the eighth *.
* JT. Bellum Carthagini jam
ante biennium a prioribus con-
sulibus illatum majore vi intulit.
Velleius Pat. 1. 12, 13.
Scipio, who is here alluded
to, was consul U.C. 607. The
former consuls, also alluded to,
were Censorinus and Manilius,
U.C. 605: or two entire years
before U.C. 607.
II. The death of Cato is
placed ante triennium quam Car-
thago deleretur, (Velleius Pat.
i. 13. 12.) Censorino et Manilio
coss: U.C. 605. Carthage was
destroyed Coss. Lentulo et Mum-
mio, U. C. 608: three full years
afterwards.
III. Ante septem annos ex
- eonsulatu sortitus Asiam. Ibid.
ii.33. Thisis meant of Lucullus,
who was consul U. C. 680. The
lex Manilia, which superseded
him by Pompey, was passed
Tullo et Lepido coss. U.C. 6884:
eight full years after the consul-
ship of Lucullus, and seven after
his appointment to Asia.
IV. Secundum consulatum
post novem annos. Suetonius,
Augustus, 26. Augustus’ first
consulship was U.C. 711—his
d Dio xxxvi. 25, 26.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. δ
Tried by the rule, which the instances in question
are fully competent to establish, St. John’s note of time,
second, U. C. 721, in the tenth
year afterwards.
V. Biennio post. Ibid. His
twelfth consulship was U. C.
749—his thirteenth U.C. 752,
in the third year after.
VI. Testamentum, L. Planco
C.Silio consulibus (U.C. 766.)
tertium nonas Aprilis, ante an-
num et quatuor menses quam
decederet, factum. Ibid.102. Au-
gustus died xiv. kalendas Sep-
tembres, U.C. 767; one year, and
part of a fifth month, after the
date of his will.
VII. Post novem menses quam
Tiberius excessit, xvi. kalen-
das Januarias. Suetonius, Nero,
6. Tiberius died xvuit. kalen-
das April. U.C. 790; whence
to xvi. kalendas Januar. in
the same year, are nine months
complete.
VIII. Intra sextum adoptio-
nis diem. Suetonius, Galba, 17.
It appears from Tacitus that this
was on the sixth day itself f.
IX. Octo post annos. Tacitus,
Ann. iv. 8. Drusus was _poi-
soned U.C. 776, medio. Seja-
nus perished xv. kalendas No-
vemb. U.C. 7848, in the ninth
year afterwards.
X. Octo post annos. Ibid. 29.
Libo was condemned U.C. 769}:
Serenus was banished U.C. 777:
in the ninth year afterwards.
XI. Sextum post cladis an-
num. Ibid. i. 62. Quadragesi-
mum post annum. Ibid. xii. 27.
That the first of these notes of
time means in the seventh year,
and the second in the forty-/irst,
e Tiberius, 73.
h Annales, ii. 27.
nonaginta unum.
f Historie, i. 29.
i Dissertation viii. Vol. i. 337, 338.
' Velleius Pat. ii. 12. Orosius, v.17. m Facitus, Ann.vi. 27. 48.
has been shewn elsewhere i.
XII. Ante annos nonagintak.
Pliny, H. N. vii. 49. This means
from U.C. 672 inclusive to U.C.
762 exclusive; that is, in the
ninety-first year.
XIII. Τὸ σπέρμα βάλλοντας...
μετὰ τέτταρας ἢ πέντε μῆνας ἀπαντᾷν
ἐπὶ τὸν θερισμόν. Diodorus Sic. 1.
36. This means four months,
or five, exclusive of the time of
sowing.
XIV. Ὅ re yap Σατουρνῖνος πρὸ
ἕξ που kal τριάκοντα ἐτῶν ἐτεθνήκει.
Dio xxxvii. 26. Cf. Asconius in
Orationem contra Pisonem. This
is spoken of U. C. 691: from
which to U.C. 654. Coss. C. Ma-
rio vi. L. Valerio Flacco, the
year of the death of Saturninus,
were thirty-seven years com-
plete!.
XV. Mera τριάκοντα ἡμέρας τῶν
γάμων. Dio, lix. 28. That is,
(vide cap. 23. wa αὐτῷ παιδίον
τριακονθήμερον τέκῃ) )—on the thir-
ty-first day, inclusive of the day
of the marriage ; otherwise the
child could not have been just
thirty days, or one entire month,
old at its birth.
XVI. Ἡρημένον μὲν πρὸ δέκα ἐτῶν
᾿Ιβηρίας ἄρξαι. Dio, lviii. 8. This
enemy of Sejanus was L. Arrun-
tius. ‘Tacitus, however™, and
Dio are at variance, with respect
to this fact in his history. Ac-
cording to the former, he had
been kept back from his govern-
ment ten years, U.C. 786 exeunte
—two years after the death of
Sejanus. According to the lat-
ter, he had been kept back from
g Annales, vi. 25. Dio lviii. 9.
k Harduin reads,
E 4
56 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
πρὸ ἐξ ἡμερῶν τοῦ Πάσχα, whatever may be meant by τὸ
Πάσχα, cannot imply less than this: viz. that exclusive
it the same length of time, U.C.
784, the year of Sejanus’ de-
struction, at least. If so, the
time of his first appointment, as
intended by Dio, was probably
the occasion alluded to by Taci-
tus, U.C. 774, when others were
appointed to provinces extra or-
dinem™, From that time to
U.C. 784 inclusive, the inter-
val was eleven years.
XVII. Ὧδε μέν... Ῥωμαῖοι...
Καρχηδόνα κατέσκαψάν τε, καὶ συν-
ᾧῴκισαν αὖθις μετὰ ἔτη τῆς σκαφῆς
ἑκατὸν καὶ δύο. Appian, De Re-
bus Punicis, vili. 136. Carthage
was destroyed U. C. 608: and a
colony was again planted there
U.C. 710.
XVIII. Mera δέκα ἔτη τοῦ οἰκῆσαι
᾿Αβραὰμ ἐν γῇ Χαναάν: Philo Jude-
us, i. 429. 1. 30. De Congressu ;
which being taken from the ό.
Gen. xvi. 3, is proved by a com-
parison with Gen. xii. 4, xvi. 16,
to denote the eleventh year since
the departure from Haran; or
the eighty-fifth of the age of
Abraham.
XIX. πρὸ μιᾶς, id est τὸ πρὸ
τῆς ἑβδόμης: Ibid. ii. 113. 36.
114. 4. De Mose.
XX. Ἢ οὐκ ἠδύνατο πρὸ μιᾶς ἡμέ-
ρας,ἢ μετὰ μίαν ἡμέραν, τοῦ σαββάτου
ἐνεργεῖν τοῦς γεννωμένους ; Justin
Martyr, Dialogus, 191. ]. 9----Μετὰ
μίαν τῆς ἁλώσεως ἡμέραν: Bell. Jud.
i. vil. 6---Πρὸ δυοῖν ἡμερῶν : Ibid.
ΧΧΧ. 1--- Μετὰ μίαν ἡμέραν : Ibid.
ΧΧΧΙΙ. 5----Πρὸ ἡμέρας μιᾶς: 11. Vili.
9---Μετὰ μίαν ἡμέραν : iii. vil. 4—
Ἡρὸ μιᾶς ἡμέρας, and, Μετά... μίαν
ἡμέραν...τῆς ἀνόδου : V. ili. 3. Vi. ἢ],
m Annales, iii. 32.
n De Ratione adeundi Templi, i. 11.
8---πρὸ τῆς παρελθούσης νυκτός:
Ant. x. Χ.3-πΠρὸ μιᾶς ἡμέρας : xiii.
ν. 7---Πρὸ μιᾶς ἡμέρας ἤ: XIV. ΧΊ].
4--- Πρὸ μιᾶς ἡμέρας τῆς ἑορτῆς : Xv.
ΧΙ. 4-- Μετὰ μίαν τῆς ἑορτῆς ἡμέραν :
Xviii. iv. 3—In all which in-
stances the day after, or the day
before, a certain date exclusive
is meant alike.
XXI. Mera δὲ ἡμέρας ἑπτά:
Ant. iii. vi. 6—Every sabbath
day. Mera τὴν ἕκτην ἡμέραν : Con-
tra Apionem, ii. 2—On the se-
venth day. Παοιεῖν δὲ καὶ τοῦτο μεθ᾽
ἑβδόμην ἐτῶν ἑβδομάδα. ταῦτα πεν-
τήκοντα μέν ἐστιν ἔτη τὰ πάντα:
Ant. iil. ΧΙ. 3—"Ede γὰρ ἀφεῖ-
σθαι μετὰ ἑξαετίαν : xvi. i. 1—In
the seventh year.
XXII. ‘Evdexar@ μὲν ἔτει τῆς A-
λεξάνδρου τελευτῆς, ἐπὶ δὲ ᾿Ολυμπιά-
δος ἑβδόμης καὶ δεκάτης καὶ ἑκατοστῆς:
Contra Apionem, i. 22. p. 1184.
Alexander died ΟἹ. 114. 1. B.C.
324. Olympiad 117. 1. answers
to B.C. 312, and 324—12=312.
XXIII. Ἔθος εὔχεσθαι πρὸ τρι-
ἄκοντα ἡμέρων ἧς ἀποδώσειν μέλ.--
λουσι θυσίας: Bell. Jud. ii. xv.1—
Maimonides, De Cultu divino® ;
Nazareatus nunquam pauciori-
bus triginta diebus conficieba-
tur. quocirca privatus sacerdos,
qui sacra administrabat, trice-
simo quoque die tonderetur opor-
tebat—Quisquis dixerit, Ecce
ego sum Nasirzus ! 1116 tondetur
trigesimo primo die®. Upon
which Bartenoras ; Tondetur
irigesimo primo die, quia Nazy-
reatus absolutus est driginta
dierum.
XXIV. Πρὸ τεσσάρων ἐτῶν τοῦ
© Mishna iii, 154. 3.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 57
of the date of the Ilacya, the day of the arrival was
the stath day previously ; inclusive of the day of the
arrival, the date of the Ilacya was the seventh day
πολέμου : Bell. Jud. vi. v. 3. This
is meant of U.C. 815 medio ;
and the war began U.C. 819
ineunte. Vide Dissertation xv.
Vol. ii. 65.
XXV. Mera ἑβδομήκοντα καὶ
ἑκατὸν ἔτη τῆς ᾿Ασσυρίων βασιλείας :
Ant. xiii. vi. 7— Aire Seleucida-
rum 171 ¢émeunte: 1 Macc. xii.
41. 51.
XXVI. Πρὸ ἐτῶν τεσσάρων ἂν
καρπὸν προβάλῃ : Ant. iv. vili. 19
—that is, four full years; for
for three years the fruit was al-
together unholy Ρ ; in the fourth
it was to be dedicated to God ;
in the fifth, but not until the
Jifth, it became free to the use
of the owner.
XXVIII. Mera τεσσαρακοστὴν
ἑβδόμην ἡμέραν: Bell. Jud. iii.
viii. g—that is, (see cap.vil. 33,)
on the forty-eighth.
XXVIII. Mer εἰκοστὸν δὲ καὶ
ἕκτον ἐνιαυτόν : Jos. Vita, 3—that
is, in his twenty-seventh year.
For he was born in the first of
Caius, U.C. 790: and it admits
of proof that this journey of his
to Rome was neither before
U.C. 816, nor after U.C. 819
—that is, he went in U.C. 817,
and returned in U.C. 8:18.
XXIX. Mera ἔτη τέσσαρα ἢ
τὸν ἀδέλφὸν αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιούδαν ἀποθα-
cording to the account of Jo-
sephus, Judas was made high
priest upon the death of Alcimus,
and four years after the death
of Menelaus, B. C. 162. Atre
Seleucidarum, 150. If so, he
Pp Lev. xix. 23—25.
the Appendix.
5 Exod. xii. 40, 41.
was made high priest B.C. 158:
and he continued in office until
his death, three years after. He
died, then, upon this supposition
at the earliest, B. C. 156. Jona-
than, his brother, became high
priest at the feast of Taber-
nacles, Aire Seleucidarum 160,
B.C. 152: from whence to the
same time B.C. 156, there were
just four years complete 4.
XXX. pd ἐτῶν δεκατεσσάρων.
2 Cor. xii. 2. This date will be
proved elsewhere? to be intended
of U.C. 808, as referred to U.C.
794, or the fifteenth year before
it imclusive. In like manner
Gal. iii. 17, 6 μετὰ ἔτη τετρακόσια
καὶ τριάκοντα γεγονὼς véuos—must
be understood of the 43 1st year,
as the year in which the Law was
given ; the year after the exodus
from Egypt ; referred to the call
of Abraham into Canaan 8.
XXXII. Mera ras ἐξ τοῦ ὅτε
ἐβαπτίσθη ἡμέρας, TH ἕκτῃ γενομένης
τῆς κατὰ τὸν ἐν Κανᾷ τῆς Γαλιλαίας
γάμον οἰκονομίας. Origen, iv. 162.
C. in Joannem Comm. tom. x. 2.
This computation proceeds from
the supposed day of our Saviour’s
baptism ; whence to the day of
the marriage feast inclusive, the
interval would be seven days t.
For other examples of the same
mode of speaking, or of comput-
ing time, see Artemidorus, Onei-
rocritica, iv. 2: iv. 34: iv. 44: ν.
p- 257: Avlian, De Natura Ani-
malium, v. 52: vii. 23: χὶ. 14:
xl. 19: xv. 26, &c.
r Vide
t John i. 29. 35.44. ii. 1.
58 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
subsequently *. And with respect to the meaning of
τὸ Ilacya, though it may have two significations,
the one particular, to denote the Paschal sacrifice,
the other general, to denote the Paschal feast; and
though the former might possibly be used exclusive
of the latter, the latter never could be used exclusive
of the former. The word Πάσχα could never be used
for the complex of the Paschal feast, and not take in
the day of the Passover in particular. The date there-
fore, πρὸ ἕξ ἡμερῶν τοῦ Ilacyxa, can be understood of no
term either earlier or later than the first day of the
Paschal feast 7x general; the day of the Passover ez
particular. In this case, if the day of the Passover
in particular was necessarily the fourteenth of the
Jewish Nisan, the, day of the arrival at Bethany, six
days before that exclusively, or seven days before that
inclusively, was necessarily the eighth of the same
month.
Now the day of the Jewish Passover in the year of
our Saviour’s passion, as I am fully persuaded and as I
hope to make it apparent hereafter, was the day upon
which he suffered. This being the case, the day of
the week on which he suffered was the fourteenth of
Nisan, the day of the Jewish passover. But the day
of the week on which he suffered was unquestionably
the sixth, or Friday. If so, the fourteenth of Nisan,
in the year when our Saviour suffered, coincided with
Friday ; and consequently so did the eighth with Sa-
turday. It confirms this conclusion, that the fourteenth
of Nisan, U.C. 783, A.D. 30, which is the true date of
* It must be admitted, 1 himself; viz. reckoning back-
think, that the former of these wards six days from the day of
two suppositions is the most the Passover, to the day of the
natural and obvious mode in arrival at Bethany.-
which a writer would express
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 59
the year of the Passion, coincided with the Julian
April 5: and therefore so did the eighth of Nisan
with the Julian March 30: of which it has been ar-
gued elsewhere", and it will be further shewn hereafter,
that the former fell out upon the Friday, and the lat-
ter upon the Saturday.
If we are right in these positions, the true date of
our Saviour’s arrival at Bethany, U.C. 783, A. Ὁ. 30,
preparatory to the last Passover, was Saturday, March
80, on the corresponding day in the Jewish Nisan. It
would seem, then, at first sight that he arrived on the
Jewish sabbath. But this is no necessary consequence :
for a Jewish day began with sunset and ended with
sunset’; and sunset, March 30, eight days later than
March 22, the true date of the vernal equinox, would
not be much earlier than 6. 30. Pp. M. It would be
daylight, even after this, for one hour more; that is,
for the whole of the first hour of the next Jewish day
as such, the ninth νυχθήμερον of Nisan, the beginning
of the first day of a new week: and if our Saviour, at
the time of the expiration of the sabbath, that is, at
sunset upon the eighth of Nisan, or the thirtieth of
the Julian March—was within an hour’s journey of
Bethany, he might still arrive there on the evening of
Saturday; yet not on the Jewish sabbath. And this
I believe to have been actually the case.
For first, it has been shewn elsewhere that, at the
point of time indicated by Matt. xix. 1, and Mark x. 1,
our Lord was not only in Perea, but arrived at the
confines of Judza: that the question of the Pharisees
concerning divorce, the next thing which those two
Evangelists record, took place on the evening of one
day, and the passage through Jericho, preceded by the
u Dissertation xii. v Lev. xxiii. 32. w Dissertation xxxi. Vol. ii.
543) 544-
60 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
crossing of the Jordan, on the morning of the next.
That the Jordan was crossed to enter Judea must be
self-evident; and that it was crossed in this instance
at the usual ford, called Bethabara, in the neighbour-
hood of Jericho, may presumptively be collected from
our Saviour’s proceeding, directly after, through that
city. For this was to take the usual course; that is,
to journey by the regular high road from the Jordan to
Jerusalem. If, therefore, the proceedings of one entire
day, the day when our Lord entered Judza and passed
through Jericho, begin to be specified at Mark x. 17,
which speaks of the resumption of the journey, con-
firmed by Matt. χχ. Ἱ, which implies it to have been
resumed in the morning; then, unless at the com-
mencement of that day it could be proved that Jesus
was somewhere within a day’s journey from Bethany,
there is no reason to suppose that he would arrive there
before the night.
Now according to the Jerusalem Itinerary the dis-
tance from Jerusalem to Jericho was 18 Roman miles;
and the distance from Jericho to the Jordan was 5:
the whole distance then from Jerusalem to the ford of
the Jordan, according to this calculation, was 23. The
same distance is reckoned by Origen *, ὡς πλατεῖ λόγῳ,
at 180 stades from Bethany, or 195 from Jerusalem ;
which makes it 24 Roman miles and one third of a
twenty-fifth. But according to Josephus ¥, whose tes-
timony ought to be the most credible of any, the true
distance from Jerusalem to Jericho was 150 stades;
and from Jericho to the Jordan, was 60. The whole
distance therefore from Jerusalem to the Jordan was
210 stades; exactly an ordinary day’s journey. And
in the Jewish Mishna we find it represented as such 2.
x Operum iv. 140. B. In Joh. tom. vi. 24. y Ant. Jud. v. i. 4. Bell. iv.
Vill. 3. Si, 20%. 1.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. ΟἹ
The only difference is that from the Jordan to Bethany
the distance was fifteen stades or almost two Roman
miles less.
But it is to be observed, that before Jesus crossed
the Jordan he was somewhere in Perza. It is also to
be observed that the ford, where he crossed it, was
somewhere in the Aulon or Perichorus of Jordan; the
nature of which we have had occasion to describe else-
where. The breadth of this Aulon was 120 stades,
or 12 English miles, in all; and that it was equally
divided by the Jordan, or that the part upon the east
was as wide as the part upon the west of that river,
appears from this fact; that the Jordan was sixty
stades, or half the breadth of the Aulon, remote from
the borders of the plain of Jericho on one side, and
therefore must have been another sixty stades, or the
remaining half of its extent, remote from the inhabited
country on the other; and Abila, a city there situated,
is placed accordingly by Josephus‘, at that distance
from the banks of the river. Now our Lord, before he
crossed the Jordan, had spent the night in Perea.
Where, then, may we presume, had he spent it? Not
in this Aulon itself; for that is described as a desert;
but where houses and villages at least were to be found.
Now this would not be the case except on the very verge
of the Aulon; nor within much less than sixty stades
of the ford of the Jordan. It is very possible, then,
that when Jesus set out in the morning of the day of
his passage through Jericho, he was the whole breadth
of the Aulon, or 120 stades, remote from that city ;
and therefore 255 stades, 32 Roman miles, remote
from Bethany: a distance which was probably too
great to be accomplished conveniently in one day. Or
though we should not suppose that he was actually
a Ant. Jud. iv. viii. 1. v. i. 1.
62 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
32 miles distant from Bethany, yet if he was 28 or 30,
that also would exceed, by three or four Roman miles,
the measure of an ordinary day’s journey.
It appears accordingly, that when Jesus had passed
through Jericho he afterwards stopped with Zaccheus.
This fact is enough to prove that the house of Zac-
cheus was somewhere between Jerusalem and Jericho;
and if it was as near to the one as the other, or if it
lay even midway between the two, it would be nine
Roman miles only distant from Jerusalem ; and seven
only distant from Bethany. |
Now when our Lord stopped with Zaccheus, I think
there is reason to conclude that he was stopping for the
night. Such at least is the natural inference both from
his own words, σήμερον γὰρ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ σου δεῖ με μεῖναι,
and from the remarks of the multitude, ὅτι παρὰ ἁμαρ-
TWAG ἀνδρὶ εἰσῆλθε καταλῦσαι Ἐν Jt must be obvious in
any case that he stopped for the purpose of refresh- .
ment; and therefore about the time of some meal;
which no one will suppose could be the morning’s, at
the hour of πρωΐ, nor the midday’s, at the fifth hour of
the day: and therefore, must have been the evening’s,
not earlier than the ninth}. Nor is it any objection
* The use of καταλῦσαι, abso-
lutely, in this instance, is one
among the other arguments that
Jesus was preparing to stay with
Zaccheus for the night. Such
is its classical signification, when
so used. It occurs elsewhere in
the Gospels, in that sense: and
in the Old Testament the Se-
venty often render by it, what
means in the Hebrew, to tarry
or abide all night.
t+ The father of the Levite,
Judges xix. 9, tells him, accord-
ing to the marginal version, that
it was pitching-time, even then
when he was preparing to set
out. This recognises a stated
time of the day, when travellers
were accustomed καταλῦσαι, or
to stop for the night. Genesis
XXV1. 17, κατέλυσεν is the version
of the Seventy, for what in the
Hebrew is “ pitched his tent.”
Dr. Shaw informs us, that the
constant practice of himself and
his party was to rise at day-
break, set forward with the sun,
b Luke xix. 5. 7.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 08
that σήμερον, in the first of those passages, though it
properly means ¢o-day, is used for this night. It is so
used in a still more unquestionable instance, Luke xxii.
34, Mark xiv. 30, where it can denote nothing but
this night. It is still less seriously to be objected that
what occurred with respect to Zaccheus, after pass-
ing through Jericho, occurred immediately after, or as
soon as Jesus had left the city; and not, very pos-
sibly, some hours later, when he had accomplished
proportionably so much more of the journey to Jeru-
salem.
But if Jesus actually stopped with Zaccheus on the
way between Jericho and Jerusalem, and actually
for the night, it seems a necessary inference that
he stopped with him for the night which preceded
his own arrival at Jerusalem. If so, he stopped
with him on the night before the eighth of Nisan;
that is, he stopped with him on the seventh, prepara-
tory to the night of the eighth. This conclusion con-
firms our preceding deductions in a manner which
almost places them beyond a question. For if our
Saviour stopped with Zaccheus on the seventh of the
Jewish Nisan, and spent with him the night of the
eighth, he stopped with him just before the sabbath ;
and the reason for his stopping at all was not merely
to distinguish the exemplary faith and goodness of dis-
position displayed by this Publican’s recent conversion,
but also the necessity of observing the sabbatic rest.
I have shewn that, at the close of an ordinary day’s
journey after the passage through Jericho, he might
and to travel until the middle
of the afternoon, (3 o'clock, the
ninth hour,) when they began
to look out for a place to pass
the night in. Mr. Harmer’s
Observations, vol. iii. chap. v.
Obs. lxiii. 238.
This is exactly what I should
conceive our Lord to have done
on the day that he passed through.
Jericho, and remained with Zac-
cheus.
64 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
be as much as three or four miles distant from Be-
thany; and possibly even more. It is not to be sup-
posed that he would stop until the usual day’s journey
had been accomplished ; nor that he would continue
his route, especially if the sabbath was at hand, when
it had. The παῤασκευὴ, or preparation of the sabbath,
began on the Friday at the ninth hour of the day, or
three in the afternoon; which was also among the
Romans, at this period, the usual time of supper *;
though perhaps among the Jews supper-time was
much later than that. At the ninth hour of the day
on Friday, the seventh of Nisan, our Lord, having set
out ἅμα πρωΐ, that is, at the first hour, from whereso-
ever he was in Perea, and travelled through Jericho,
at the rate of three Roman miles to the hour, might
yet be within three or four miles of Bethany.
This distance it would be easy to accomplish, by
setting out at sunset on the following day, so as to
arrive at Bethany before the actual fall of night.
There is an instance in Josephus which proves that,
even upon ordinary occasions, supper-time among the
Jews might be so late as the second hour of the night°;
that is, at the period of the vernal equinox, within an
hour from the fall of night: and after the expiration
* ....... Sic ignovisse pu-
tato | Me tibi, si coenas hodie
mecum. 4. Ut libet. 4. Ergo |
Post nonam venies. Horace, E-
pistolarum i. vii. 69. Exul ab
octava Marius bibit. Juvenal, i.
49—that is, an hour earlier than
usual. Verum ubi declivi jam
nona tepescere sole | Incipiet,
sereque videbitur hora meren-
de, &c. Calpurnius, Ecloga v. 60.
Pollionem Asinium ... nulla
res ultra decimam retinuit: ne
epistolas quidem post eam ho-
ram legebat ...sed totius diei
lassitudinem duabus illis horis
ponebat. Seneca, De Trangquil-
litate, cap.15. §.13. Cf. iii. Mace.
v. 14: Pseudo-Aristeas apud Jo-
sephum, vol. ii. 130. ad calc.
Appendix: Nicolaus Damasce-
nus, Vita Augusti, xiii: Pliny,
Epistolarum iii. 1. ὃ. 8.
ς Vita, 44.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple.
65
of the sabbath, it is probable that such would be always
the case. It is not absolutely certain that the Jews, at
this period of their history, observed an entire abstinence
on the sabbath; though both Suetonius, and Justin the
abbreviator of Trogus’, seem to imply it *: but it
_ * To these we may perhaps
add Martial: Quod bis murice
vellus inguinatum, | Quod jeju-
nia sabbatariorum. Lib. iv. iv. 6.
No one at least, I should think,
would be disposed to produce,
as decisive evidence to the con-
trary, the testimony of the book
of Judith, viii. 6. Plutarch, Sym-
posiaca, iv. 5: Operum viii. 671,
indeed observes : αὐτοὶ δὲ τῷ λόγῳ
μαρτυροῦσιν ὅτι σάββατον τιμῶσι,
μάλιστα μὲν πίνειν καὶ οἰνοῦσθαι
παρακαλοῦντες ἀλλήλους" ὅταν δὲ
κωλύῃ τι μεῖζον, ἀπογεύεσθαί γε πάν-
Tas ἀκράτου νομίζοντες: but he
has so many other statements in
the same part of his works, con-
cerning the Jews and their usa-
ges, which are false, that this
may very probably be added to
the number. ‘Tertullian, Ope-
rum v. 45. Apologeticus, 16, im-
plies, apparently, quite the re-
verse: AZique si diem solis le-
titiz indulgemus, alia longe ra-
tione quam de religione solis,
secundo loco ab eis sumus qui
diem Saturni otio et victui de-
cernunt, exorbitantes et ipsi a Ju-
daico more, quem ignorant. Cf.
Ibid. 154. ad Nationes, i. 13. It
may be inferred, too, from the fol-
lowing passage of Persius, that
the Jews in his time did not de-
vote the sabbath to eating and
drinking and making merry, but
on the contrary to fasting and ab-
stinence. At cum | Herodis ve-
nere dies, unctaque fenestra |
Dispositz pinguem nebulam vo-
muere lucerne, | Portantes vio..
las, rubrumque amplexa cati-
num | Cauda natat thynni, tu-
met alba fidelia vino: | Labra
moves tacitus recutitaque sabbata
palles. v. 179. It seems the
most natural construction of
these words, that the occurrence
of a dies Herodis, (which being
intended, as I suppose, of a day
such as Agrippa the younger,
the contemporary of Persius,
would observe, may denote the
sabbath,) at a period of rejoicing
among the Romans, like the
celebration of the Ludi Flora-
les, or any thing of the same
kind, would, under the influence
of Jewish superstition, throw a
damp over the festivity, as out
of season upon one of their holy-
days.
I know not, too, whether Ho-
in the supposed apostrophe to Ju-
piter, is not to be understood of
the Jewish sabbath, rather than
of the Dies Jovis. It is agreed,
that the allusion is clearly to a
piece of superstition, borrowed
from the Jews by such of the
Romans as observed it. And
the passage cited from Sueto-
nius in his Vita Augusti, proves
that in Horace’s time the sab-
bath was considered to be kept
v Suetonius, Augustus, 76. Justin, xxxvi. 2.
VOL, III.
F
66 . Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
is certain that they observed a comparative one; and
in particular, that they would neither light a fire nor
cook meat of any kind upon that day. ᾿Απείρηται δὲ κατὰ
ταύτην πῦρ ἐναύειν-----[Ν] nde ὅτι θερμὸν πίνομεν ἐν τοῖς σάβ-
βασι δεινὸν ἡ γεῖσθε----ἸΚαἱ ταῖς ἑβδομάσιν ἔργων ἐφάπτεσθαι
διαφορώτατα Ἰουδαίων ἁπάντων (φυλάσσονται)" οὐ μόνον
yap τροφὰς ἑαυτοῖς πρὸ ἡμέρας μιᾶς παρασκευάζουσιν, ὡς
μηδὲ πῦρ ἐναύοιεν ἐκείνη τῇ ἡμέρᾳ, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ σκεῦδς τι μετα-
κινῆσαι θαῤῥοῦσιν, οὐδὲ ἀποπατεῖνν.
On this account, at the first repast which followed
upon the expiration of the sabbatic νυχθήμερον, that is,
at the supper of the first evening of the ensuing week,
they were accustomed, as was natural, to allow them-
selves in somewhat of more liberal an indulgence. The
arrival of our Lord at Bethany was followed by a
supper; which, if it was given on the evening of his
arrival, was given on the evening in question; and
otherwise it was manifestly such as to answer to this
extraordinary character *. That it was so given will
be seen hereafter, when we compare St. John’s account
of the unction with that of St. Matthew or of St.Mark.
Moreover, it is a certain fact that the time of the mid-
by the Jews with the strictest as a fast.
abstinence from morning until
sunset. We do not know this of
Thursday, though the old Scho-
liast, in locum, asserts it. But
this Scholiast is much later than
the time of Horace. In a werd,
many of the customs ascribed to
the Jews of this time, on the
authority of the rabbis, in my
opinion are falsely ascribed to
them ; and were not true at the
Gospel period of their history.
Of this number, I should con-
sider the alleged observance of
the sabbath-day as a feast, not
w Philo Judeus, Operum ii. 282. 1. 45: De Septenario et Festis Diebus.
* Theophylact, i. 669. A. in
Joannem xii. after observing
that the lamb, designed for the
Passover, was set apart on the
tenth day of the month, and that
preparations for the feast began
to be made from that time for-
wards, continues: ἀμέλει καὶ τῇ
πρὸ ἕξ ἡμερῶν, ἥ ἐστιν ἐννάτη τοῦ
μηνὸς, ἁβρότερον ἑστιῶνται, καὶ προ-
οἰμια τῆς ἑορτῆς τὴν ἡμέραν ταύ-
την ποιοῦνται. According to the
Jewish mode of reckoning, this
would have been the eveningofthe
Saturday before Passion-week.
Ju-
stin Martyr, 194. line 18. Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. viii. 9.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 67
day’s repast was one hour later on the sabbath than
usual*; and this is presumptively an argument that the
time of the evening’s on the same day was proportion-
ably later also.
Hence if its ordinary time on a week-
day might be before sunset, its ordinary time on the
sabbath-day might be after: if it was delayed, on a
week-day, until the jfivst hour of the night, or if the
Jirst hour of the night on a week day was its usual
time, (which I believe to have been the case Y,) it would
be nothing extraordinary that its time, on the sabbath,
should have been the second Ὦ.
* The evening’s repast, even
among the Romans, might be
delayed until the time in ques-
tion ; for so it is that Augustus
writes in the passage from his
Life referred to above: Ne Ju-
deus quidem, mi Tiberi, tam
diligenter sabbatis jejunium ser-
vat, quam ego hodie servavi ;
qui in balneo demum, post ho-
ram primam noctis, duas_ buc-
ceas manducavi priusquam ungi
inciperem: cap. 76. There is
no proof that the Roman cus-
tom of supping at the ninth or
tenth hour of the day was gene-
rally observed among the Jews:
while the passage from the Life
of Josephus, which shews him
to have been supping, as matter
of course, at the second hour
of the night, seems to be de-
eisive to the contrary. It may
have been the case, however,
that the ninth hour was the
usual period of some meal
among them; such as the
evening’s strictly so called, or
what Calpurnius termed the
merenda ; but not their prin-
cipal meal—as the supper is
known to have been—and which
x Jos. Vita, 54.
there is every reason to suppose
was always taken in the night.
It appears to have been their
practice to make about four
hours’ interval between the time
of one meal, and that of an-
other ; for the first was taken at
mpot, the next at the fifth hour
of the day, the third at the ninth;
and on the same principle the
fourth, which would be properly
the supper, would be taken at
the first hour of the night. The
old Roman custom also was to
sup at sunset, or soon after it:
and hence, probably, an ancient
standing order of the Roman se-
nate, alluded to by Seneca ; Ma-
jores quoque nostri novam rela-
tionem post horam decimam in
senatu fieri vetabant: De Tran-
quillitate, xv. ὃ. 14. Varro, Fra-
gmenta, Lib. iv. p. 195: Senatus
consultum,ante exortum aut post
occasum solem factum,ratum non
fuit. Moreover, the fashionable
Roman world was as much ad-
dicted to late hours, and as fond
of turning day into night, and
night into day, as the modern.
L, Piso .. usque in horam sextam
fere dormiebat—Jam lux pro-
y Vide Jos. Vita, 44.
F 2
—668 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
Again; though our Lord himself, and his Twelve
Apostles, might stop with Zaccheus, there is no reason
to suppose that the rest of his followers would do the
same; and especially those who had homes of their
pius accedit: tempus est coene—
Prandia ccenis, usque in lucem
-_perductis, ingesta sunt—Seneca,
Epistole, 83. §.12: 122. § 7:
Naturalium Quest. iv. 13. ὃ. 5.
So it was in the time of Horace
and Persius. Horace, Sermonum
li. vii. 32. Jusserit ad se | Mece-
nas serum sub lumina prima ve-
_ nire | Convivam. Epistolarum i.
v. 3. Supremo te sole domi, Tor-
quate, manebo. Cf. Sermonum
i. 11.17. ‘Tecum etenim longos
memini consumere soles, | Et
tecum primas epulis decerpere
noctes. Persius, v.41. Though
the more usual supper or dinner
hour at Rome, and where the
Roman custom had been adopt-
ed, was not later than the ninth
or tenth, that is, than three or four
in the afternoon.
Procopius, De Bello Persico,
1. 14. 71. 1. 3-8, giving an ac-
count of a battle between the
Romans, under Belisarius, in the
reign of Justinian, A. D. 530 or
531, (seei.17.81.14,15,) and the
Persians, under Mirrhanes, the
general of Cabades, king of Per-
sia, tells us the latter purposely
delayed their attack until past
midday : τοῦδε εἵνεκα ἐς τοῦτον τῆς
ἡμέρας τὸν καιρὸν τὴν ξυμβολὴν
ἀποθέμενοι, ὅτι δὴ αὐτοὶ μὲν σιτίοις
ἐς δείλην ὀψίαν χρῆσθαι μόνον εἰώ-
θασι, Ῥωμαῖοι δὲ πρὸ τῆς μεσημ-
βρίας, ὥστε οὔποτε ᾧοντο αὐτοὺς
ὁμοίως ἀνθέξειν, ἢν πεινῶσιν ἐπίθων-
ται. Cf. Liber ii. 18. p. 231. 1.
4. 7Es δείλην ὀψίαν cannot de-
note an earlier time than sunset ;
which it hence appears was the
common hour of supper through -
out the East. The usage of the
Jews, in respect to supping,
would be no exception to this
general rule. Such an usage at
least was agreeable to that of
the Greeks; who seem to have
observed the same custom. Ly-
sias, Orato i. ὃ. 22: Σώστρατος ἦν
μοι ἐπιτήδειος καὶ φίλος" τούτῳ 7-
λίου δεδυκότος ἰόντι ἐξ ἀγροῦ ἀπήν-
τησα εἰδὼς δὲ ἐγὼ .... ἐκέλευσα συν--
δειπνεῖν" καὶ ἐλθόντες οἴκαδε ὡς ἐμὲ
ἀναβάντες εἰς τὸ ὑπερῷον ἐδειπνοῦ.-
μεν. Xenophon Hell. νἹ]..2. 22: ἢν
μὲν οὖν τῆς ὥρας μικρὸν πρὸ δυντὸς
ἡλίου: κατελάμβανον δὲ τοὺς ἐν τῷ
τείχει πολεμίους τοὺς μὲν λουομέ-
νους, τοὺς δ᾽ ὀψοποιουμένους, τοὺς
δὲ φύροντας, τοὺς δὲ στιβάδας ποι-
ουμένους. Aulus Gellius, xvii.
8: Philosophus Taurus accipie-
bat nos Athenis ccena plerum-
que ad id diei, ubi jam vespera-
verat : id enim est tempus isthic
coenandi frequens. Cf. Suidas,
Δεκάπους oxid. Que quia prin-
cipio posuit jejunia noctis, |
Tempus habent myste sidera
visa cibi. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 535.
In the Opera Inedita of Fronto,
-vol. i. De Feriis Alsiensibus, vi.
197, we have this allusion in a
letter of Marcus Aurelius to him:
Dictatis his, legi Litteras Alsi-
enses meo tempore, mi Magister,
cum alii cenarent, ego cubarem
tenui cibo contentus hora noctis
secunda: whence it appears,
that while Marcus was in bed,
others were supping, at the se-
cond hour of the night.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 69
own to go to, at no great distance from thence. For
this reason, had the family of Lazarus accompanied
him from Galilee to Jericho, and even been with him
before he became the guest of Zaccheus; yet it would
be morally certain that they would continue their
route to Bethany, or that by some means or other
they would arrive there before our Lord himself.
Hence it might justly be said, as it is by St. John, that
our Lord found Lazarus there when he came. Nor
would it be extraordinary that a supper should be
ready for him, apparently as soon as he came; for
they might be expecting his arrival, and already ap-
prised of the time when it would take place.
It would seem then that the day when Jesus crossed
the Jordan, and passed through Jericho, and subse-
quently stopped with Zaccheus, was Friday, the seventh
of the Jewish Nisan, and the twenty-ninth of the Ju-
lian March; that the day when he arrived at Bethany
was Saturday the thirtieth of the Julian March, and
strictly speaking the evening of the ninth of the Jew-
ish Nisan. From this point of time then must we
begin to deduce the train of proceedings subse-
quently, until the morning of the resurrection; and
it is a strong argument of the truth of these con-
clusions, that the duration of what was literally the
period of our Lord’s suffering becomes, upon this
principle, agreeably to its name of Passion-week, nei-
ther more nor less than one week. For he thus ar-
rived at Bethany on the first day of one week, and he
rose again on the first day of the next: and as the
former of these extremes was strictly the beginning, so
was the latter the close of the period of his humilia-
tion, or of what St.John calls κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν his hour;
and the close of the period of his humiliation was also
the beginning of his glorification.
F 3
70 Dissertation Thirty -eighth.
This question being thus disposed of, we may pro-
ceed to consider the course of events from the date
of the arrival at Bethany to the time of the procession
to Jerusalem.
The first of these events is the supper and the unc-
tion which followed so soon upon the arrival; but this
has been reserved for discussion elsewhere. The next
is the resort of the Jews to Bethany, to see Jesus and
Lazarus, who was also there; a resort, which could
not be prior to his arrival, and was doubtless pro-
duced by the news of the arrival itself. Yet it could
not have begun ou the day of that arrival; first,
because the arrival, as we have proved, was either on
the sabbath, or one hour after its close. If it was
upon the sabbath, then Bethany, which was fifteen
stades or one Roman mile and seven eighths of an-
other distant from Jerusalem*, was three times the
distance allowed to be travelled on the sabbath; viz.
two thousand cubits, five or six stades. This distance
St. Luke tells us was about the distance of Mount
Olivet from the city>’—that is, according to Jose-
phus*’, not more than six, nor less than five stades. Oi
ἐκ περιτομῆς . . Ψψυχρὰς παραδόσεις φέροντες, ὥσπερ καὶ
περὶ τοῦ σαββάτου: φάσκοντες τόπον ἑκάστῳ εἶναι δισχιλί-
ous πηχεῖς----Οὐκ ἐξῆν βαδίζειν ἐν σάββασιν ὑπὲρ τὸ μέτρον
τῶν ἐξ σταδίων τῶν ὡρισμένων ----ἶδὶ quando eos juxta lit-
teram coeperimus arctare: ut non jaceant, non ambu-
lent, non stent, sed tantum sedeant (sc. sabbato)...
solent respondere et dicere, Barachibas, et Simeon et
Helles, magistri nostri, tradiderunt nobis ut bis mille
pedes ambulemus in sabbatho 4.
2 John xii. g—11. ; a Jehn xi. 18. Origen, iv. 140. B. in Joannem,
Tom. vi. 24. Hieronymus, ii. Pars i*. 422. De Situ et Nominibus. > Acts i. 12.
ς Bell. Jud. v. ii. 3. Ant. xx. viii. 6. 4 Origen, De Principiis, iv. 17.
Operum i. 176. Epiphanius, Operumi. 702. Ὁ. Manichei Ixxxii. Hieronymus,
Operum iv. Pars i*. 207. ad medium. Vide also, Mishna, ii. 240. 4. iii. 248. 3.
Vide Josh. iii. 4. Numb. xxxy. 5.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 71
But if it took place after the sabbath, neither could
the news of the arrival have been carried that night to
the city, nor if it had would there have been time for
any resort to Bethany to begin the same evening. At
the vernal equinox, it would be dark soon after the close
of the first hour of the night. Besides which, what
stranger would have thought of intruding upon Jesus,
or Lazarus, for the gratification of his own curiosity,
before the following morning ?
It may be taken for granted, then, that the time of
the resort belongs, at the earliest, to the ensuing day ;
the morning of the ninth of Nisan, Sunday in Passion-
week, and the thirty-first of the Julian March: a con-
clusion, which the interposed account of the supper, if
that be regular, demonstrates beyond a question. If
the resort was after that supper, it must have been
on the ninth of Nisan.
All this day, Jesus continued in Bethany; and if
we consider the proximity of that village to Jerusalem,
_ the preexisting impatience of the people to see our Lord®,
and the prodigious numbers, which in addition to its own
population, were always present in Jerusalem at the time
of the Passover, we shall not doubt that this passing to
and fro would quickly begin, and when begun would go
on with such bustle and celebrity as to attract the notice
of the Sanhedrim, whose eyes all along had been fixed
on Jesus; and as being produced in part by the desire
of seeing Lazarus, the living witness to his own resur-
rection, would speedily induce them to deliberate on
the best mode of removing him also. The probable
absence of Lazarus from Jerusalem until now, which
fact we have endeavoured to establish elsewhere, is a
sufficient reason why this resolution should not have
been conceived before; and his return at this time in
e John xi. 55, 56.
F 4
72 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
company with Jesus, followed by the curiosity which
his presence excited, as naturally accounts for it now.
The sensible proof of so stupendous a miracle, fur-
nished by his personal reappearance on the spot,
made as many converts as the preaching of our Lord
himself. :
It will follow from this conclusion that the day of the
actual procession to the temple, which John xii. 12 de-
nominates τὴν ἐπαύριον, the day after this resort, must
have been the second day of the week, the Jewish tenth -
of Nisan, and the Julian first of April. If so, this pro-
cession is erroneously assigned to the Sunday in Pas-
sion week, thence commonly called Palm Sunday ; and
does in reality belong to the Monday. ‘The contrary
opinion however general, rests upon no better au-
thority than that of prescription; and if there seems
reason to do so, we may freely eall it into question:
for however much we may be inclined to respect the
concurrence of opinion, and the length of time for
which such and such notions have been in vogue, we
are bound to subscribe to none, even the most ancient
and most popular, merely because they are so. ‘These
opinions were fixed originally in times when those,
who determined them, had not the inclination, and
perhaps not the ability, to be particularly careful in
ascertaining their truth: and since then they have
been received and transmitted with an implicit defer-
ence to antiquity and to authority : as if what had
so long been currently believed could not possibly be
mistaken.
Upon the question at issue, while the arrangement
and succession of events in St. John, dated from their
proper ἀρχὴ, the time of the arrival at Bethany, neces-
sarily lead us up to this one conclusion ; the testimony
of the other Evangelists, deduced from the date of the
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 73
last supper, would reflexively confirm St. John, and ne-
cessarily lead us back to it. If it can be proved that
this supper took place on the Thursday, then they
bring down the course of events to the close of the day
before it, which is Wednesday; and prior to this they
give clear intimations of éwo, but only of fwo, succes-
sive days more: the first of which was the day of the
procession to the temple. The day of this procession,
if it was two days prior to the Wednesday, must have
coincided with the Monday.
A further argument, and perhaps the most powerful
of all, will appear hereafter from the end and design of
the procession itself. Nor can it be any good objection
to the conclusion in question, that it supposes our Lord
to have continued one entire day at Bethany, apparently
inactive, before he appeared in public. I have no doubt
that, for the sake of the reason alluded to, this was
done on purpose. Under the circumstances of his ap-
pearance on this occasion, no day was proper for his
first solemn reappearance in public, except the tenth of
Nisan. In the mean time, his continuance at Bethany,
by affording an opportunity for a more promiscuous
resort of the people to him, and by diffusing a greater
and more general expectation of his coming, was prepa-
ratory to his reappearing at last with so much the more
of publicity. Not to say that wherever he was he could
not be inactive; and if he did not teach in the temple,
he might still be so employed at Bethany. One part of
a day, at least, and that the greater part, must have been
on any principle occupied in private; for if, as St. Mark
tells us, he did not arrive in the temple until late, he
could not have set out to go thither until late.
There is a much greater objection which may be
brought against the received opinion ; viz. that if we
compute the detail of proceedings in Passion-week from
74 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
Palm Sunday we must bring our Lord’s public ministry,
as we shall see hereafter, to its close on the Tuesday ;
and one whole day, the Wednesday ensuing, before the
celebration of the last supper, would become a total
blank; during which it would be evident that our Lord
could not have been any way engaged in public, and yet
we should not be able to conjecture how he might be en-
gaged in private. The way to obviate this difficulty is to
date these proceedings from Monday: for then every day
(even the Sunday not excepted) is accounted for, down
to the eve of Thursday; at which time our Lord so-
lemnly made an end of his ministry. On the Thursday
he kept his Passover; and on the Friday he suffered.
Now the connection between all these events is such
that, if any one of them only was fixed to a certain
day, the rest must have been similarly determined.
For example ; if Jesus was to suffer on the Friday, he
must keep his own Passover on the Thursday; he could
not both keep it himself, and fulfil it by suffering upon
the feast day, at the same time. And if he was to
keep his own Passover on the Thursday, he must take
leave of the people, and formally close his ministry, on
the Wednesday; he could not both be employed on
the next day, as he had been for the two days before,
and keeping his Passover also. Nor.is it improbable
that the three days, thus spent in public, from Monday
in Passion-week, to Wednesday inclusive, during which
he was conversant in the temple before his enemies as
well as his friends, contained a secret reference to the
three years of his ministry previously. Each, reckoned
on the principle of the Jewish computation, would ter-
minate alike the day before he consummated the final
purpose of his mission itself; viz. on the thirteenth of
the Jewish Nisan. For he proceeded to the temple on
Monday, and he finally quitted it on the Wednesday ;
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. δ
upon the morning of the Jewish tenth of Nisan in the
one case, and on the evening of the Jewish thirteenth
in the other. We may observe also this further analogy
between these three days, and the three years of the
Christian ministry. On the first our Lord went to the
temple amidst the acclamations of the people, and
welcomed by all as their Messiah: on the second he
was received with ambiguous favour, and minds wa-
vering between faith and unbelief: on the third this |
feeling was still more increased ; and at the close of
that day his enemies, as we shall ‘see hereafter, con-
certed with Judas the scheme of his death. The same
description of the effect, mutatis mutandis, might apply
to the three years of his ministry. But to proceed with
the course of the subject. |
The Gospel of St. John, which has hitherto gone by
itself, it is manifest still stands alone from xii. 12 to 13,
where the proceedings of Monday, the tenth of Nisan
and the first of April, begin to be related. The fact
of the resort from Jerusalem to Bethany, produced by
the news that our Lord was coming to the city, and
the special circumstance that his procession set out
from Bethany, are peculiar to his account. Bethphage,
indeed, through which the three other Evangelists all
make it pass, lay upon the slope of Mount Olivet ‘,
as well as Bethany; and nearer to Jerusalem than
it; in which case, a procession from Bethany to-
wards Jerusalem would pass through or by Beth-
phage.
_ The reason however why Bethphage, in St. Mark and
in St. Luke, is placed before Bethany is probably this ;
that as, according to Epiphanius?, φύσει (γὰρ) λεωφόρος
ἣν παλαιὰ, the high road from Jericho, ἄγουσα εἰς ‘lepovea-
_ f Hieronymus, ii. Pars 18, 422. De Situ et Nominibus. g Operum i. 340. Ὁ.
341. A. Marcioniste. 2 Sam. xv. 23. 30. xvii. 22.
76 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
Any. διὰ τοῦ ὄρους τῶν ᾿Ελαιῶν, οὐκ ἄγνωστος οὖσα τοῖς καὶ
τὸν τόπον ictopovcw—Bethphage lay upon the direct
line of this route, but Bethany did not; so that one tra-
velling from Jericho, as they suppose our Lord to be
travelling previously, would come to Bethphage first,
and would have to turn off from the road to go to
Bethany. It is possible also that they were almost
contiguous; or little more than divisions of the same
village: and in any case, it is certain that our Lord’s
procession stopped at Bethphage; and from thence that
he continued his route under those circumstances which,
as being the most illustrious instance of the fulfilment Ὁ
of prophecy now supplied, all the Evangelists are more
or less careful to record.
From this time forward St. John’s account begins to
be joined by that of the rest; and as might be expected
in a supplementary Gospel, he dwells henceforth upon
nothing but what they had passed over in comparative
silence; or what was necessary to explain them, and to
apply his own accounts to their’s. Of his conciseness
where he touches upon a circumstance which had been
fully related before, xii. 14 is an apposite proof; and
of the application of his accounts to their’s, xii. 16 and
17. The miracle of Lazarus indeed, as one of the
most recent, and certainly one of the most memorable
instances of power which the disciples had witnessed,
must undoubtedly have been alluded to, Luke xix. 37: -
but the propriety of the allusion in St. Luke appears
only from St. John.
The news of our Lord’s intention to visit Jerusalem,
on this day, was probably carried thither by some of
the many visitors to Bethany the same morning. The
consequent procession of the Jews from the country,
which set out from the city to meet him, must have set
h John xii. 12.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. Ἢ
out of their own accord ; and perhaps joined him first
when he was still at Bethphage. The Hosannas then,
which John xii. 13 ascribes to the attendants of Jesus,
are manifestly the Hosannas of the whole of his attend-
ants; and not, like those in the other Evangelists, the
Hosannas of a part. The branches of palm, a species
of tree which is among the first in the East to put
forth its verdure, were carried for a purpose left unex-
_ plained by St. John, but ascertained by the rest—viz.
to strew in the road before Jesus; a mark of respect,
which would be paid to none but persons of acknow-
ledged rank and dignity '—in unison, consequently,
with the strong expectation now entertained that the
kingdom of the Messiah was at hand; and with the per-
sonal Hosannas, addressed to our Lord as King. There
is a case in point to the demonstrations of joy upon
this occasion, and about the same time of the year also,
1 Maccabees xiii. 51. The use of these boughs in parti-
cular was associated also with the ceremonial of the
most festive and gladsome among the Jewish solemni-
ties, the Scenopegia or feast of Tabernacles‘. Similar
to these acts in design, but a still more striking decla-
ration of the personal feelings of the agents, (not, how-
ever, until our Lord had mounted upon the ass’s colt,
and resumed his procession with something of the state
of a King, as well as with the humility of a Prophet,)
was the act, ascribed by the rest of the Evangelists to
the greater part of the multitude present, the act of
spreading their garments on the ground beneath his
feet; for this was directly to acknowledge him as
king *},
* It is thus that Clytemnestra, Agamemnonuponhisreturn from
according to Aischylus, receives Troy. Δμωαὶ, τί μέλλεθ᾽, ais ἐπέ-
i Vide Herodotus, vii. 54. Compare also viii. gg. k Nehem. viii. 15.
Ant. Jud. xiii. xiii. 5. Maimonides, De Sacrificiis Jugibus, x. 8. Annott. 1 Ant.
Jud. ix. vi. 2. 2 Kings ix. 13.
78 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
Between Bethphage and Jerusalem, on the same slope
of Mount Olivet, though not necessarily in the same
line of descent, there must have lain another village ;
a circumstance by no means improbable ; for the sub-
urbs of Jerusalem were scattered with villages in
every direction. ΤῸ this village were the two disciples
despatched from Bethphage for the ass and the colt,
upon which Jesus designed to enter Jerusalem. Though
their names are not mentioned, yet we may conjecture
that these two were Peter and John; and in order to
point out the fulfilment of a remarkable prediction, the
fact of their mission is specified by each of the three
Evangelists. ‘The account of St. Mark, however, is
much the most particular ; which, if Peter was one of
the messengers, would be easily explained; and next
to St. Mark’s, St. Luke’s. But St. Matthew, with his
usual attention to this kind of argument, has noticed
the most distinctly of any the conformity of the event
to the prediction of it by Zechariah ™.
Nor is there any difference in the terms of the se-
veral accounts, further than what concerns the precise
statement of the orders given tothe messengers; in which
St. Matthew comprehends both a she-ass and her colt;
St. Mark and St. Luke, though by mentioning a colt as
such they virtually include also its dam, yet specify only
the colt. The true reason of which distinction is not
that both were not sent for, but that our Lord, though
σταλται τέλος πέδον κελεύθου
στρωννύναι πετάσμασιν; | εὐθὺς γε-
νέσθω πορφυρόστρωτος πόρος, | εἰς
δῶμ᾽ ἄελπτον ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται δίκη.
Agamemnon, 917. Qua ventura
Dea est, juvenes timideque pu-
elle | Pravertunt latas veste ja-
cente vias. Ovid, Amores, il.
Xlli. 23.
Plutarch, Cato Minor, 12: ὑ-
ποτιθέντων τὰ ἱμάτια τοῖς ποσὶν ἣ
βαδίζοι. Charito, Lib. iii. 44. line
24: ἡ Adpodirn γαμεῖ. πορφυρίδας
ὑπεστρώννυον, καὶ ῥόδα καὶ ἴα" μύρον
ἔῤῥαινον βαδιζούσης.
m Ch, ix. 9.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. "9
he sent for the dam also, intended to ride solely on the
colt, and actually rode only on the colt.
The first of these facts is implied in the very terms
of the order relating to the colt, as recorded by St.Mark
and by St. Luke, though omitted by St. Matthew—eq’
ὃν οὐδεὶς πώποτε ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισε". This circumstance
would not have been so distinctly specified, if our Lord
had not himself intended to sit upon it now for the first
time: and the fulfilment of the prophecy, which had
predicted in the first place his riding upon an ass, and
in the next, to shew that it was an ass as yet unbroken
or put to any common use, on a colt, the foal of an ass,
was rendered thereby so much the more striking. The
second of the same facts is proved directly by the testi-
mony of St. Mark and of St. Luke, who both affirm
that he rode upon the colt; and implicitly by that of
St. John ; whose use of the term ὀνάριον ὃ shews that
the anima) was a young one of its kind.
It was not possible that Jesus could ride on both the
dam and her colt at once; nor probable that he would
ride first upon the one and then upon the other ἢ.
When therefore St. Matthew says that the disciples,
having brought the ass and her colt, put their own
robes, ἐπάνω aitév?, this may be explained by the
simple consideration that, as both had been sent for,
they might think both were wanted, or as yet they did
not know which Jesus designed to use. Or, like Mat-
thew xxvii. 44, or Herodotus ii. 121, ᾧ. 4, (ἐπιθέντα δὲ
τὸν νέκυν ἐπὶ τοὺς ὄνους.) it may be resolved into the mere
compendium of speech. But when he adds, καὶ ἐπεκά-
θισεν (ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς) ἐπάνω αὐτῶν, no one can doubt that he
* Yet this has been supposed: Vide Theophylact, i. 109. C. In
Matt. xxi.
n Luke xix. 30. Cf. Mark xi. 2: © Ch. xii. 14. p Ch. xxi. 7.
80 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
means this to be understood of his sitting on the gar-
ments, which served as the ephippia or housings for
the occasion. In the first three Evangelists the act in
question is distinctly attributed to the disciples; and
even in the last it is so implicitly 4: Now these things
the disciples understood not at the first—but when
Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these
things had been written in allusion to him, and these
things they had done for him. The observation is in-
tended of the personal agency of the disciples in bringing
them to pass. The presence of the ass then, as well as
of her colt, may perhaps be accounted for by supposing
that, if the colt was still a young one and following
the dam, it could not be separated from it; or rather
because the female or mother ass being mentioned in the
prophecy, the female or mother ass was concerned also
in the fulfilment of it.. The colt could not be distinctly
recognised for such, except by means of its relation to
the dam. Nor is it improbable that, while Jesus himself
rode on the one, something belonging to him—perhaps
his upper or outer garment—might be carried on the
other.
In this state would he set out from Bethphage to-
wards the city: nor could he have proceeded far be-
fore the enthusiasm of his attendants broke out into
Hosannas and Hallelujahs; and St. Luke seems to
have critically pointed out both the place where they
began to be raised, and the quarter from which they
first proceeded. The place was the foot, or as he calls
it the κατάβασις *, of the Mount of Olives, when the
* Xenophon, Anab. ili.iv.37: ρυφή. ὑπώρεια δὲ τὰ πλευρὰ τοῦ
ἀκρωνυχίαν ὄρους, ὑφ᾽ ἣν ἡ κατάβα- ὄρους. τέρμα δὲ τὰ τελευταῖα, καὶ
σις ἦν εἰς τὸ πεδίον. Suidas, πόδες. The same gloss occurs
᾿Ακρώρεια. εἰς τρία γὰρ διήρητο τὸ = again, voce Τέρμα and Ὑπώρεια.
ὄρος" εἰς ἀκρώρειαν, εἰς ὑπώρειαν, ες So likewise Hesychius.
τέρμα. ἀκρώρεια μέν ἐστιν ἡ κο-
q John xii. 16.
Arrival at Bethuny, and procession to the Temple. 81
procession would still be five or six stades distant
from the city, and had not yet crossed the valley and
brook of Cedron', which bounded the mountain at
its base. The quarter, from which they proceeded,
was our Lord’s own disciples; and Hosannas or Hal-
lelujahs, raised upon the grounds which are specified
Luke xix. 37, could have begun with none so fitly as
with them. Both the fact of their commencement in
this quarter, and the propriety with which they had
begun there, are illustrated by the remonstrance arising
out of the one, and by the answer which vindicated the
other’. Such a rebuke would hardly have been le-
velled against them in particular, if they were follow-
ing the example of others, and not setting an example
to the rest themselves. St. John indeed shews that this
example was speedily imitated, especially by those who
had seen, and who still remembered the raising of La-
zarus; so that John xii. 17, 18 will ensue on Luke
xix. 37, 38, and then the remonstrance of the Phari-
sees, with its answer, Luke xix. 39, 40, upon that.
It is in the nature of enthusiastic emotions to be
rapidly propagated among large bodies. ‘The accla-
mations of the disciples therefore were soon caught and
reechoed by the multitudes, according to St. Matthew
and St. Mark, who went before and who followed
after: and the difference, if there is any, in their
several Hosannas may consequently be accounted for
thus. In St. Luke, these are the acclamations of the
immediate followers of Jesus; in St. Matthew and in
St. Mark (nearly agreeing together) they are the accla-
mations of the promiscuous multitude, distinct from
them. The strain indeed of all might be very much
alike; though, for the sake of his Gentile readers,
St. Luke would purposely omit such expressions as
r Reland, Palestina, i. xlv. 294. liv. 351. s Luke xix. 39, 40.
WOOL. ETI, G
82 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
Hosanna; Hosanna, for the Son of David; the king-
dom of our father David; and the like; which were
intelligible only to Jews, or resolvable into Jewish
prepossessions.
Subsequently to the commencement of these accla-
mations, but before our Lord was arrived at Jerusalem ᾿
—probably while he was still on the mount of Olives,
with the city and the temple to the westward in
view before his eyes—the affecting scene of his weep-
ing over it, accompanied by the most lively, minute,
and circumstantial prediction, of its siege and desola-
tion, any where in Scripture, must have taken place‘:
the contrast between which, rendered more impressive
as it was by his own significant emotion, and the false
enthusiasm of the surrounding multitude, is too re-
markable to escape our notice. Yet could it not have
damped the ardour of the spectators; nor therefore
have been rightly comprehended by them at the time;
for the same demonstrations of joy and exultation, which
had attended Jesus to Jerusalem, accompanied him also
into it.
The whole city, as St. Matthew next observes, was
shaken or agitated; agitated, by the bustle and fer-
ment of so large a procession, by the joint acclama-
tions of the multitude and of the disciples, and by the
natural impulse of curiosity to know what this could
mean. As is usual under such circumstances, the train
of our Lord would acquire accessions of numbers the
further it proceeded ; and in his progress to the temple,
the crowded streets of Jerusalem, where millions of
souls at this time were collected in attendance upon the
feast, would swell prodigiously the concourse of his
followers. Here then we may best insert that obser-
vation of the Pharisees among themselves, John xii.
t Luke xix. 41—44.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 83
19, not merely as a consequence of the failure of their
previous remonstrance, but as a distinct admission of
their own inability to arrest the tide of the popular
feeling ; which is most naturally accounted for by sup-
posing that feeling to be now arrived at its height. From
the place assigned to it in the context, it could not
long have preceded the request of the Hellenes to see
Jesus; as neither did that request the departure of Jesus
for the night. But this brings us to the consideration
of the time when our Lord entered the temple, and what
stay he may be supposed to have made there.
That we may waive, for the present, the further
question whether he cleansed the court of the temple
on this occasion or not; (a question, which has no-
thing to do with the first of those two points, and but
little with the second ;) St. Mark’s account of proceed-.
ings, after the entrance into the city, is simply this—
that our Lord went into the temple; looked round on
the state of things there; and then departed with the
Twelve to Bethany for the night. And it is assigned,
as the reason for the shortness of his stay, that the
hour was late. St. Luke, who mentions merely the
cleansing of the temple, leaves every other circum-
stance doubtful; except that, by telling us elsewhere ἢ
that our Lord’s practice, throughout the previous days,
᾿ had been not to leave the temple until night, he may
be considered to imply that he left it, on this occasion
also, only at night. St. Matthew’s account adds certain
particulars to that of St. Mark; viz. the cure of some
blind and lame persons in the temple; the acclama-
tions of the children; and another remonstrance of the
Pharisees, with our Lord, on that account: in none of
which is there any thing inconsistent with St. Mark.
For first, the περιβλεψάμενος πάντα of this Evan-
u_Ch. xxi. 37.
G 2
"84 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
gelist’ does not imply that Jesus did nothing else on
this occasion; but simply prepares the reader for the
cleansing of the temple on the following day. Se-
condly, the cures in question, though necessarily
wrought after the entrance into the temple, would
take up no time, nor require any long continuance
there. Thirdly, the acclamations of the children had
doubtless been going on from the first, and were
not then merely begun, so as to have produced the
remonstrance on the spot. Fourthly, as soon as our
Lord had replied to this remonstrance, he left the
temple immediately ; and when he went out it was
for the night; for he proceeded to Bethany, and slept
there.
The account of St. John, so far as it belongs to the
history of proceedings on the same day, consists of only
one additional and supplementary particular, the re-
quest of the Hellenes to see Jesus, and the reflections
which it drew from our Lord Ww. If these Hellenes
were, as I apprehend, and as their name implies, not
Jews of the Dispersion, whose proper denomination
would have been Hellenists, but Gentile proselytes,
numbers of whom attended every feast*; the scene of
this incident, or at least of the first part of it, the re-
quest addressed to Philip, was probably the outer
court of the temple, to which only such proselytes
had access; and therefore the time was either when
our Lord was passing through that court out of the
temple, or after he had already quitted it: and there
is internal evidence, at verses 35 and 36, that, as this
application to him was apparently the last event in the.
day, so it was made when the night was at hand. The
allusion at least in those verses to the approach of the
v Ch. xi. 11. w Ch. xii. 20—36. x Jos. Bell. vi. ix. 3.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 88
night, besides its spiritual meaning, becomes so much
the more striking and impressive, if it contains a sen-
sible meaning also.
The nation of the inquirers is further implied by
the nature of their request itself; which was much
more probably that they might be permitted to speak
with, than merely to see Jesus. If they were really
Gentiles, the former would be such a request as nei-
ther Philip nor Andrew, without first consulting his
Master, could take upon himself to grant; and there-
fore it would account at once for the behaviour of both :
but the latter was such a gratification of an innocent
curiosity, as any one of the disciples might voluntarily
have undertaken to concede. The strain of our Lord’s
reflections is in unison with the same supposition ; for
he takes occasion, from the coincidence of such a re-
quest at this time, to predict in obscure, yet significant
terms the future success of his Gospel, in the preaching
of Christ crucified among the Gentiles. When this con-
versation then took place, it is probable that he was
either passing out of the temple,or had quitted it already. .
Nor is more implied at verses 28 and 29, by the men-
tion of the people’s standing and hearing the voice
from heaven, than that, on being apprised of the ap-
plication of these strangers, wheresoever he was, he
had stopped for a time (which however could not be
long) to deliver the sentiments which ensued.
Laying these particulars together with St. Mark’s
previous statement of the time when he left the temple
—a statement, which cannot be understood of an earlier
period than sunset—and making every allowance for
the slowness and solemnity of the procession, after it
set out from Bethany to traverse a distance which pro-
bably did not exceed three Roman miles in extent;
“we may come to the conclusion that Jesus must have
G 3
"80 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
left Bethany about the ninth hour on the tenth’ of
Nisan, Monday in Passion-week, and the Julian first
of April; that he must have arrived in the temple be-
fore the eleventh hour; and must have left it again
before sunset, or just on the eve of the Jewish eleventh
of Nisan.
It would seem, then, that upon this occasion he must
barely as it were have appeared in the temple, and
as speedily departed from it again; which would be
so far simply to present himself before God: and if
the Christian doctrine of the Atonement is scriptural
and true, to present himself in his capacity of the
Paschal sacrifice, now ready to be offered up. If we
may assume then, that he did this in compliance with
the legal equity; the legal equity required it to be
done on the tenth of Nisan: for at the first institution
of the Passover’, it had been commanded that the
lamb, which was to be sacrificed on the fourteenth,
should be taken up and consecrated for that purpose
on the tenth. It is true that Maimonides, and others of
the rabbis, enumerate this requisition among the special
circumstances, such as eating the Passover in haste, in
the garb and attitude of travellers, and the like, which
they consider peculiar to the Pascha Aigyptium, or the
first Passover as such. Quod autem in Agypto preescri-
ptum erat, ut usque a decimo die primi mensis parare-
tur victima paschalis,... hac omnia omnino semel in
illo sacro paschali Aigyptio servata sunt; sed nunquam
usitata fuére postmodum”. I am ready to admit the
general probability of this statement, especially in the
case of those who might arrive in Jerusalem on the
morning of the Passover itself; of which we shall see
an instance hereafter in the case of Simon of Cyrene.
But if it was merely a circumstance essential to the
y Exod. xii. 3. 6. Z De Sacrificio Paschali, x. 15.
Arrival at Bethany, and procession to the Temple. 87
ceremonial of the first Passover, that was sufficient
to make it indispensable to the sacrifice of the death of
Christ; and to explain the grounds of the legal requi-
sition, which would otherwise be inexplicable.
But in addition to the character of the Paschal vic-
tim, our Lord had another to support, in the character
of the daily sacrifice: with regard to which Mai-
monides himself informs us? that the lambs, intended
for that purpose, were set apart to be kept in the Con-
clave Agnorum, within the sanctuary, guatriduum ante
immolationem. On this principle the daily sacrifice,
for the fourteenth of Nisan, must have been taken up
and set apart on the tenth; the morning sacrifice in the
morning, the evening one in the evening. On the same
principle too, it would be nothing improbable to sup-
pose that every lamb, which was wanted by any Pas-
chal company on the fourteenth of Nisan, was set apart
in some proper place, for the service of such a company,
on the tenth. In all these coincidences, if our Saviour
was really the true Paschal victim, and really the true
ἐνδελεχὴς θυσία, and really presented himself in both
these capacities before God, on the tenth of Nisan,
four days before the fourteenth when he suffered, and
about the same time of the day on the one, at which
he suffered upon the other; we cannot but perceive a
striking conformity between the type and the antitype,
between the figures of things to come, and their fulfil-
ment by the event: which correspondence, it would be
great scepticism and incredulity, if not the height of
inconsistency, to resolve into the effect of chance. It
will add to the difficulty of accounting for it on any
principle but that of design ; that the tenth of Nisan,
when our Lord presented himself in the temple, ac-
cording to the Jewish mode of reckoning, was his no-
a De Sacrificiis Jugibus, i. 8.
G 4
88 Dissertation Thirty-eighth.
- minal birthday, and the fourteenth of Nisan when he
actually suffered, according to the Julian, was his ¢rwue:
that is to say, the fifth of the Julian April, which coin-
cided in the year of his birth with the tenth of Nisan,
coincided in this year when he suffered with the four-
teenth. For the proof of these positions I must refer
to my first volume”; but if the positions themselves are
true, we need no other argument to convince us that
the day of our Lord’s procession to the temple before
he suffered was Monday, the first of April, which coin-
cided with the tenth of Nisan; as the day when he
suffered was Friday, the fifth of April, which coincided
with the fourteenth.
Ὁ Vide Dissertation xii. ὁ
DISSERTATION XXXIX.
On the proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week, and on the
time of the cleansing of the Temple.
"THE transactions of this day, which answers to the
eleventh of the Jewish Nisan and the second of the
Julian April, as far as they have been recorded, are
only these three; first, the cursing of the barren fig-
tree, before the arrival of our Lord at the temple;
secondly, the cleansing or purgation of the temple; and
thirdly, the day’s teaching in it afterwards. On the
last of these points there is no difficulty; but upon
each of the former there is. We will consider them in
the order of their occurrence.
_ The malediction pronounced upon the fig-tree, is
related by St. Matthew and by St. Mark; but for a
reason which might easily be assigned *, is omitted
by St. Luke; and both the former place it on the
day after the procession to the temple, as our Lord
with his disciples was returning thither from Bethany
again. The scene of the malediction is consequently
ascertained to be somewhere between Bethany and the
city, on the mount of Olives; and the time, which
St. Mark’s expression, τῇ ἐπαύριον ἃ, would have left in-
definite, becomes similarly determined by St. Mat-
thew’s "Ὁ, πρωΐας δὲ ἐπανάγων εἰς τὴν πόλιν, to a period
very probably prior, and certainly not posterior to the
* This reason is the affinity the parable of the fig-tree plant-
and connexion between the final ed in the vineyard, which St.
end gf the act of striking the Luke has recorded.
barren fig-tree, and the moral of
a Mark xi. 12. » Matt. xxi. 18.
90 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
first hour of the day. Ilpwi and πρωΐα, however nearly
akin, are not exactly the same in their signification ;
and as the former properly implies the jirst hour of
the day, which began at sunrise, so does the latter the
time immediately prior to that, which is the interval
between dawn and sunrise. The same hour was the
period of the usual morning’s meal among the Jews;
in which case, the hunger of our Lord—which is spe-
cified by each of the Evangelists, independently of any
other considerations, as the moving cause to the act in
question—becomes naturally accounted for*. And
that the return to the temple both this morning and
the next was early, may be collected from the general
declaration of St. Luke quoted above‘; as well as from
John viii. 2, which shews it was our Saviour’s prac-
tice, whenever he repaired to the temple, to go thi-
ther early. The hour of zpwi, indeed, was the com-
mencement of the morning service; and from that
time to the third hour of the day was one of the stated
periods for the resort of the people to worship. It is
no wonder, then, that our Lord should be in the temple
during these times more particularly.
The final end of striking the fig-tree, which was a
symbolical action, and more closely connected with the
scope and design of the parable recorded Luke xiii.
6-9 than is commonly supposed, I cannot now under-
take to explain; but whatever other difficulties, in re-
lation to the material fact there might be—as why the
tree, by exhibiting a show of leaves, should have
raised the expectation of fruit, and yet the time or
* According to Mr. Harmer, fasting on eggs, cheese, honey,
(iii. 126, 127. ch.iv. Obs. xxxix.) &c., bread, milk, fruit. And
the people of the East still eat their practice is to rise at break
as soon as they get up, break- οἵ day, all the year round.
ς Ch. xxi. 37, 38.
91
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week.
season of the fruit not yet be come*—it may be proper,
and it is not difficult, to obviate.
The natural period for the principal crop of the fig
is every where the same, the close of the summer or
the beginning of autumn; and that is consequently the
proper season of figs. But it is known to naturalists
that, in its own country, the fig-tree produces a second
crop, the season of which is the winter. It might be
some of this second crop which our Lord expected to
find on this occasion: and in that case, it must have
been of the remnant of the fruit of the former year.
But it is also possible that it might be fruit actually
of that year’s growth. Ficus et przecoces habet, says
Pliny, quas Athenis prodromos vocant®. Sunt et biferze
in eisdem‘. And again: Contra novissima sub hieme
maturatur chelidonia. sunt preterea ezdem serotinze
et preecoces, biferze, alba ac nigra, cum messe, vinde-
miaque, maturescentes * &.
* Athenzus, iil. 7; ex Epi-
gene: εἶτ᾽ ἔρχεται | χελιδονείων μετ᾽
ὀλίγον σκληρῶν ἁδρὸς | πινακίσκος.
These figs, like certain winds,
were probably so called because
they appeared with the swallow.
Ibid. 11: τὰ δὲ χειμερινὰ σῦκα
Πάμφιλος καλεῖσθαί φησι Κυδωναῖα
ὑπὸ ᾿Αχαιῶν. Of the early ripe
figs, called πρόδρομοι, the same
author (12) quotes from Theo-
phrastus: πάλιν δὲ τοὺς mpodpd-
μους αἱ μὲν φέρουσιν, ἥ τε Λακω-
νικὴ.... καὶ ἕτεραι πλείους" αἱ δ᾽ ov φέ-
ρουσιν. Again: Σέλευκος δ᾽ ἐν Γλώσ-
σαις, προτερικήν φησι καλεῖσθαι γέ-
νος τι συκῆς, ἥτις φέρει πρώϊον τὸν
καρπόν. διφόρου δὲ συκῆς μνημο-
νεύει καὶ Ἀριστοφάνης ἐν ᾽᾿Ἐκκλησια-
ζούσαις" ὑμᾶς δὲ τέως θρία λαβόν-
tas | διφόρου συκῆς. καὶ Avtupa-
d Mark xi. 13.
e H. N. xvi. 49.
According to Maimonides,
νης, ἐν Σκληρίαις" ἔστι δὲ παρ᾽ αὐτὴν
τὴν δίφορον συκῆν κάτω. Hierony-
mus, lil. 644. ad calc. in Jerem.
25: Comparat autem calathum,
qui bonas ficus habebat, et bonas
nimis, ficis primi temporis, qu
Grece appellantur πρώϊμα.
In Ovid’s Fasti, ii. 253, there
is a legendary story relating to
the constellation Anguis, Avis,
Crater, the time of whose rising
was xvi Kal. Martias. Stabat
adhue duris ficus densissima po-
mis: | Tentat eam rostro ; non
erat apta legi. | Immemor impe-
rii sedisse sub arbore fertur, |
Dum fierent tarda dulcia poma
mora. On which principle, there
must have been a possibility of
meeting with green figs, in a con-
siderable state of forwardness,
f Ibid. I. & H.N. xv. 19.
92 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
the fruits of certain trees were required to be offered
along with the dpayua, manipulus, or wave-sheaf of
barley at the Passover: which implies that, generally
speaking, ripe fruits were to be had at that season as
well as ripe barley.
so early even as February 14.
Cf. Hyginus, Poeticum Astro-
nomicon, i. 40. Scholia ad Arati
Phenomena, 449, and ad Germa-
nici Aratea Phenomena, 426.
The physical history of these
early ripe figs is thus detailed by
Hilary of Poictiers, in Matt. Ca-
non xxi. Operum 570. A—D.
Hec namque arbor dissimili-
ter a ceterarum arborum et na-
tura et conditione florescit. nam
flos ei primus in pomis est, sed
non his, que maturitatem, ut
emerserint, consequentur. grossa
enim hee et communis usus et
prophetica authoritas nuncupa-
vit. verum postea interne fe-
cunditatis virtute exuberante,
ejusdem speciei atque forme po-
ma prorumpunt: quibus pro-
rumpentibus ista truduntur, et
dissolutis quibus continebantur
radicibus, decidunt (2a leg.) alia-
que illa exeuntia usque ad ma-
turitatem fructuum provehun-
tur. sed de superioribus illis, si
quando inciderit ut in sinu vir-
gularum ex ramulo eodem pro-
deuntium emerserint, manent
semper, et non sicut grossa ce-
tera decidunt, sed herent sola
tantum poma que cetera matu-
ritate preveniunt. et hos pul-
cherrimos fructus arbor illa ex
se dabit, qui cum grossis ceteris
promergentes de medio utrarum-
que virgularum claviculo profe-
rentur. The same account is
given by Ambrose, Operum i.
1449. B-E: in Lucam, lib. vii.
ὃ. 162, and in terms so much
If this was likely to be the case
the same, as necessarily to lead
to the inference that Ambrose
borrowed from Hilary, or Hi-
lary from Ambrose, or both from
some common original. I give
the latter part of this account:
Etenim qua se medio trudere de
cortice gemma consuevit, ea mi-
nutissima queque hujus generis
poma prorumpunt...itaque cete-
ris albentibus primo vere vir-
gultis, sola ficus proprio nescit
flore canescere ; ideo fortasse
quod nullus istis maturior sit
usus in pomis. nam succedenti-
bus aliis, hac quasi degeneran-
tia respuuntur, et arenti infirma
radice, renovatis quibus sit suc-
cus utilior, exuruntur. manent
tamen aliqua perrara, nec deci-
dunt, quibus hic proventus ar-
riserit; ut de medio duarum
virgarum claviculo brevi erum-
pente promergant, quo geminis
tecta presidiis tamquam nature
parentis gremio, succi fotu ple-
nioris inolescant. ea clementi-
oris aure provocata temperie, et
prolixioribus adultiora tempori-
bus, ubi sylvestrem animum
succi prioris exuerint, specie ce-
teris et maturitatis gratia pre-
feruntur.
Mr. Harmer, vol. i. 405. chap.
iv. Obs. lv. informs us from Dr.
Shaw, that though the Boccore
or early fig is not ripe before
June, nor the fig which is ex-
ported before August, yet a few
figs are sometimes ripe six weeks
or more earlier, and consequent-
ly in April or May.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 93
in any year, it would be more particularly so in years
when the Passover fell out late, and almost an entire
month in advance of the summer compared with other
times. In this year the Passover was celebrated on
the fifth of April, only eleven days earlier than its
latest time. Besides which, Josephus, in a passage
which has been quoted elsewhere 8, informed us that
in some situations, if not throughout all Judea, the
fig-tree produced a succession of fruit for ten months
in the year; which ten months must have extended
from March to December inclusive. Ripe figs might,
consequently, be looked for in convenient places, and
upon trees, whose appearance shewed them to be par-
ticularly healthy and vigorous, even at the end of
March or the beginning of April: and it is to such
early fruits as these that the allusions occur at Isaiah
xxviii. 4, Micah vii. 1, Nahum iii. 12, and Hoshea ix.
10. Even now, according to the report of modern
travellers, the early ripe figs, throughout the Levant,
come into season in the month of June. Diodorus
Siculus attested a similar fact concerning the syca-
mine, a species of mulberry, or something between
the mulberry and the fig, in Egypt, the climate of
which country was not more favourable for the pro-
duction of such an effect, than that of Judea; and
yet this fruit was supplied so abundantly and so con-
stantly, that the poor are said to have supported them-
selves upon it all the year round *.
* Diodorus, i. 34. Solinus,in gusta est. uno anno septies
his Polyhistor, describes this tree
as follows: De arboribus, quas
sola fert Augyptus, precipua est
ficus Aigyptia, foliis moro com-
paranda; poma non ramis tan-
tum gestitans, sed et caudice:
usque adeo foecunditati sue an-
fructum sufficit : unde pomum si
decerpseris, alterum sine mora
protuberat. Polyhistor,cap.xxxii.
§.34. Cf. Theophrastus, Histo-
ria Plantarum, i. 23. iv. 2—
Pliny, H. N. xiii. 14. Strabo,
ΧΙ, 3. ὃ. 15. 81, 82, gives a simi-
g Dissertation xxiii. vol. ii. 269.
94 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
It is very possible then that a tree, which from the
advanced state of its foliage shewed that it was pecu-
liarly strong and luxuriant, might be found to yield
some of this early ripe fruit. Our Lord visited it
more as a tentative experiment—if haply he might
find ought upon it—than with the certain assurance
that he should. Nor does this imply any defect of
knowledge upon his part; for he was aware what the
event would be: but the action being designed as sym-
bolical, his going up to the tree in the apparent hope
of meeting with fruit upon it, in the first place, and his
pronouncing a curse upon its barrenness, as if in conse-
quence of some disappointment, in the next, rendered it
the more solemn, significant, and impressive *.
While St. Matthew and St. Mark, in their accounts of
this transaction, agree together substantially, the latter,
as usual, in the mention of circumstances is somewhat
the more particular of the two. But this distinction
must be understood with reference solely to the circum-
stances of the act: as to what followed, or is related
subsequently, there is some difference which requires
to be explained. The malediction pronounced on the
tree, according to St. Matthew, took effect instantly—
ἐξηράνθη παραχρῆμα ἡ συκῆ : the words could scarcely
have been delivered before the tree had begun to be
sensibly affected. Now both he and St. Mark expressly
attest that the transaction occurred in the presence of
the Twelve. Jesus was walking with them, when he
lar account of the productions
of the plain of Themiscyra on
the Pontus; where grapes, pears,
apples, and every sort of fruit
resembling the nut, were to be
found in abundance at all sea-
sons in the year.
* Cyril of Jerusalem, Opera,
176.1.10: Catechesis xiii. 9: τίς
> 5 ¢ > ΄ a -“
οὐκ οἶδεν ὅτι ἐν καιρῷ χειμῶνος συκῆ
οὐ καρποφορεῖ, ἀλλὰ φύλλα περίκει-
ται μόνον; ὅπερ πάντες ἤδεισαν,
a > a > > A > >
τοῦτο ᾿Ιησοῦς ἄρα οὐκ der; ἀλλ
AN Oo” ¢ , Ὗ a
εἰδὼς ἤρχετο ὡς (nTNT@V" οὐκ ayvo-
΄“ [τς > ς / > A A ,
ὧν ὅτι οὐχ εὑρίσκει, ἀλλὰ TOY τύπον
a ,ὕ 7 “ ’ 4
τῆς κατάρας μέχρι τῶν φύλλων μό-
voy ποιούμενος.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 95
fell in with the tree; he went up to it in their sight;
and he pronounced the sentence of its perpetual barren-
ness in their hearing. The effect also, which ensued,
ensued before their eyes; they heard what had been
said, according to St. Mark 5 and they saw what was
done by it, according to St. Matthew. It is no won-
der, then, that they should have been surprised when
they witnessed the change in the tree; a change so
suddenly produced; the effect of a few words, and
those not actually commanding it, though possibly
presupposing it. It was equally natural that they
should have expressed this surprise; and as St. Mat-
thew describes them to have done it, among them-
selves: and their surprise being known to our Sa-
viour, not merely as it was expressed but also as it
was caused, that he should have founded such reflec-
tions upon it, either for their admonition in particular
or for that of others in general, as were appropriate
and pertinent to the occasion, was just as much to be
expected.
The Apostles wondered at the visible effect, pro-
duced upon the tree; but more, perhaps, at the secret
efficacy of the power which had produced it: and our
Lord, according to his usual practice of deriving in-
struction from the occasion, and knowing that their
admiration of this power was accompanied internally
by the wish to possess it, tells them first, in reference
to the object of their astonishment, that this was a
slight effect, compared with what the same power,
rightly applied, was capable of bringing to pass: se-
condly, in reference to the object of their wish, that
this power to be rightly applied must be so through
the medium of the implicit faith: thirdly, in refer-
ence to the virtue of this faith, it was such that
whatsoever they might ask for in prayer, whether the
3 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
energies of miraculous power, or any other petition, if
they believed they ded obtain they should obtain: all
which, if applied to the Apostles, was applicable only
proleptically now, but might be so actually hereafter ;
and yet it is so obviously the result of the passing
event, that it might well have ensued at the time. And
in fact, if there is any truth in St. Matthew’s account,
it must have ensued at the time. For as he makes the
sudden drying up of the tree the cause of the wonder
of the Apostles, so he makes the wonder of the Apo-
stles the direct effect of the drying up of the tree. Are
we to suppose, then, that the tree was dried up now,
but the wonder was not felt until the following morn-
ing ? or as the tree was dried up on the spot, so that the
wonder was felt and expressed upon the spot? The very
language of his account implies as much. ‘The fig-
tree, says he, was instantly dried up; the disciples,
continues he, when they saw it, exclaimed, How in-
stantly is the fig-tree dried up! or, as it may also be
rendered, How is the fig-tree instantly dried up? In
either case, this drying up must have taken place, and
been noticed accordingly on the spot.
These several particulars are not mentioned by St.
Mark; whose present account goes no further than the
sentence of barrenness pronounced upon the tree: yet
the very circumstance that it stops short even there,
prepares the reader for something more afterwards. It
does not say the fig-tree immediately dried up; but it |
does say the disciples heard what was said. Now the
effect did certainly follow upon the words at the time;
and it was of little use to observe that the by-standers
heard the words, if their having heard them was not
intended to account for something which they said
or did: or that they heard them now, if it was
not to explain something which they said or did at
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 97
another time. When therefore they were all returning
by the same way on the following morning, they saw
the tree, as the Evangelist tells us, dried up from the
roots; and in consequence of that spectacle, one of them,
Peter, was reminded of what he had heard the day
before: and the very terms in which he proceeded to
address our Saviour are a proof that he was reverting to
a past transaction: See, Master, the fig-tree, which thou
cursedst, is dried up.
This account, then, has clearly the appearance of a
renewed conversation on the same subject; and not the
less so, because the motive to it was the same; viz. the
change both at first, and in this second instance, percept-
ible in the tree. Yet the renewal of the conversation is
ascribed to one of the disciples only; the original re-
mark to all: and with regard to the exciting cause,
there is this difference upon each occasion, that St.
Matthew simply says the tree ἐξηράνθη, was dried up
or withered ; St. Mark, that it had been dried up or
withered ἐκ ῥιζῶν. The former would still be true, if
the tree sensibly began to droop, or exhibited a per-
ceptible contrast with its flourishing state a moment be-
fore; but the latter presupposes the absolute extinction
of vegetable life. The one might take place on the
spot; for it would be only the prelude to the final ef-
fect: the other, as the consummation itself, might not
be complete until some time after. The former then
might both be seen and commented upon at the time;
the latter, not until the following morning. What fur-
ther remarks, therefore, we may have to make upon
the sequel of St. Mark’s account, must be reserved for
the next Dissertation, which will treat of the events of
- the ensuing day.
The incident respecting the fig-tree having thus
transpired, on the way from Bethany to Jerusalem, be-
VOL. III. H
he Θ Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
fore, rather than after, the first hour of the day; the
arrival at the temple would take place rather after
that hour, than before it. And if the cleansing of the
temple was performed this day, and was the first thing
done subsequent to the arrival, that also would come
to pass after the first, yet before the second hour of
the day. On this question, however, St. Matthew is
apparently committed with St. Mark; the former, as it
would seem, assigning the act of the cleansing to the day
of the procession to the temple, the latter to the fol-
lowing morning: St. Luke, whose account of a similar
transaction is such as might accord to either supposi-
tion, being consequently so far neuter.
Unless, therefore, the cleansing in St. Matthew was
altogether a different transaction from the cleansing in
St. Mark, the former has introduced an Anticipation,
or the latter a Trajection into his accounts: and an
Anticipation in St. Matthew would be no extraordinary
phenomenon, but a Trajection in St. Mark would be one.
If the two events were the same act, there is no avoid-
ing this conclusion, except by supposing that St. Mat-
thew begins his account of the proceedings on the
eleventh of Nisan with this instance of cleansing, on
the day after the public procession, at xxi.12: which
would be, in the first place, to resolve one difficulty by
another; since though the two accounts of the cleans-
ing might by this means be reconciled together, yet
those of the malediction on the fig-tree, as we have
seen, would be set at variance.
In the next place, the beautiful incident, relating to
the children in the temple", bears upon its face the
evidence that this part of the narrative at least belongs
to the day of the procession. For when it is consi-
dered that our Lord set out that day amidst the shouts
h Matt. xxi. 15, 16.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 99
and acclamations of the multitude, the various strains
of whose Hallelujahs did not prevent but that all
might have been employed—and that he arrived in the
temple similarly attended ; when we consider also that
the peculiar expressions, écavva τῷ υἱῷ Δαβὶδ, are found
in St. Matthew only, and yet are the very expressions
which he puts into the mouths of the children; when
we consider further the strong natural impulse of chil-
dren to imitate what is passing around them; to mix
eagerly in every scene of bustle and animation, and to
be as loud and as active therein as any: we can enter-
tain little doubt that they had caught these expressions
from the multitude; they were merely doing what
thousands of grown up persons had been, or were still
doing besides. Unless therefore our Lord came again
to the temple the next day, as he had done the day
before, in a public procession, with similar demonstra-
tions of the public enthusiasm ; this little circumstance,
which is as natural as it is beautiful, determines thus
much of St. Matthew’s account, from 14—17, to the even-
ing of the tenth of Nisan.
There is no alternative then but to conclude that
either the same act of cleansing was twice performed,
once on the evening of the tenth and again on the
morning of the eleventh of Nisan, or that St. Matthew
has recorded it out of its place. The first of these sup-
positions may possibly be true; but for the reasons
which 1 shall proceed to subjoin, I do not think it so
probable as the second.
First, the comparison of the two accounts leads to
this conclusion rather than any other. With the ex-
ception of one particular’, καὶ οὐκ ἤφιεν ἵνα τις διενέγκη
σκεῦος διὰ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, there is not a circumstance, and
scarcely an expression, in the one which does not occur
i Mark xi. 16.
H 2
100 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
in the other; so much so, that St. Mark might even
have copied from St. Matthew. This additional par-
ticular itself constitutes no mark of discrimination be-
tween two otherwise identical acts: for Josephus and
Maimonides * both shew that it would be equally ne-
cessary to the integrity of either. To carry vessels
into, or through the temple; even to admit any, except
what were consecrated to the service of the temple;
was always forbidden, and would have been considered
a profanation. That our Lord’s declaration accom-
panying the act is expressed interrogatively in St.
Mark, and directly in St. Matthew, and with πᾶσι τοῖς
ἔθνεσιν in the former, though wanting in the latter, is
too trifling an objection to be insisted on. The last cir-
cumstance amounts merely to an omission; which in
St. Matthew’s time, when the church was composed of
Hebrews only—all zealous for the Law—might be
made out of accommodation to their prejudices: and
both this difference and the other are easily explained
on the ground of his characteristic conciseness. In
short, the account of neither is as different from that of
the other, as the account of either from that of St.
Luke; which yet must be the same with one of them,
if not with both.
Secondly, when our Lord entered the temple on the
evening of the tenth of Nisan, it is probable that the
traders, with their droves of cattle and their other
effects, had already removed them for the day; or that
the very pressure of the multitudes, by which he was
attended, would force them to give way. The outer-
most court (of which alone they were in possession)
would be the first entered and the most completely oc-
cupied ; for many would have access to that who could
k Contra Apionem, ii. cap. 8. p. 1244. De A&dificio Templi, i. 20.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 101
not gain admission beyond it. The next morning, how-
ever, our Lord returned in a private manner; accompa-
nied merely by the Twelve: and if he returned, as we
supposed, soon after the first hour of the day, the
traders would then be in the midst of their occupa-
tion; and not only zeal for the honour of God, indig-
nation at the profanation of his house to worldly
purposes, and a just regard to the privileges of the
Gentiles, who were thus dispossessed of their proper
court, or condemned to share it with beasts and birds ;
but even a desire to facilitate the resort of the people
to himself, might lead him to the act.
Thirdly, if this profanation had been resented the
evening before, and yet was still going on the next
morning, the previous rebuke, it is manifest, had failed
of its effect: the traders had set the authority of our
Lord at defiance, and were determined to keep up the
abuse in spite of him. In this case, either a succession
of similar acts of correction, as often as he visited the
temple, must have been necessary to enforce submis-
sion; and we might expect the same act of cleansing to
have been thrice performed, as well as twice: or if a
single instance of it was not likely to be sufficient for
the end in view, it would never have been attempted at
all. Not to mention that, at this period, the common
people universally esteemed our Lord as a Prophet, and
would look upon all his acts with submission ; though
that had not been the case, still:if he thought proper to
assert an authority of this kind, he himself would doubt-
less accompany the assertion of it with such an impres-
sion of involuntary dread and reverence, as would not
fail to render it effectual, and prevent the necessity of
repeating it.
Fourthly, Luke xix. 47, which subjoins an account
of his employment after the cleansing, is a strong pre-
H 3
[10 _ Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
sumptive argument that it happened at the beginning
of some day. “Hy διδάσκων τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ,
literally interpreted, means, He was teaching for the
day in the temple, not, He was teaching daily in the
temple!; which would have required καθ᾽ ἡμέραν
merely : and whether it describes the employment of
that one day in particular, or of others after that in
general, still it implies that the business of teaching in
every instance, and consequently on this day among
the rest, took up the best part of a day at least.
Such a description, then, would be apt and appropriate,
if the cleansing immediately before it, happened at the
hour of πρωΐ, on the eleventh of Nisan; but not, if it
occurred at the hour of ὀψία, the evening before.
There is no proof that our Lord taught that evening
at all; and if we consider the lateness of the time
when he arrived in the temple, the speediness of his
departure again, and the ferment and agitation of the
public mind; a ferment and agitation, which were at
their highest, when his procession was come to the
temple; there will be no reason to suppose that he
could have taught at all. The stillness, the composure,
the gravity, the attention, necessary to the business of
teaching, were incompatible with the circumstances of
the occasion. This very agitation, produced as it was
by the confident but mistaken belief that his kingdom
was now at hand, might be a chief reason both why he
selected a late hour of the day for visiting the temple,
and why, after a short stay there, he so quickly with-
drew into privacy under cover of the night. |
The mention also of the indignation of the Jewish
rulers, in the same passage of St. Luke which describes
this employment, can be resolved into no cause, but the
1 Vide Luke xi. 3. compared with Matt. vi. 11.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 103
assumption of the authority implied by the act of cleans-
ing immediately preceding. The mere circumstance
of teaching subsequently, if it had not been preceded
by that, was not sufficient to have produced this indig-
nation ; especially so far as to have made them seek
to destroy him on the spot, had they not been re-
strained by the fear of the people. Nor is it any ob-
jection that St. Luke prefixes no note of time, which
might have determined the act of cleansing to the
morning of the eleventh of Nisan: for his Gospel, in
this part, is strikingly distinguished by that anecdotal
character, which as we observed elsewhere™, was more
or less peculiar to all the Evangelists: in consequence
whereof, it is plain that he intended to relate not the
transactions of every successive day, as in full or as of
successive days, but only in part—only as those of dis-
tinct days. Thus, between xix. 29. and xix.44, he com-
prehends whatsoever he designed to relate of the events
_ of the tenth of Nisan—between xix. 45. and the end of
the chapter, all that he would say of the eleventh—be-
tween xx. 1. and xxi. 38, all that he would say of the
twelfth. Nor can the peculiarity of this structure be
better illustrated, than by the idiomatic preface to the
events of this last day itself: And it came to pass on one
of those days". He speaks of this day as something un-
certain, indefinite, unconnected with what goes before ;
yet he knew it to be, and intended it to be understood
as the day consecutive on the close of events in the pre-
ceding chapter.
Fifthly, the question, openly put to our Saviour on
the morning of the Wednesday in Passion-week, re-
spects the usurpation, as it implies, of authority either
then or the day before. St. Mark’s account of this
question is: Bywhat authority doest thou these things°?
m Dissertation iii. Vol. i. 237, 238. n Ch. xx. 1. ο Ch. xi. 28.
H 4
| 104 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
and who gave thee this authority that thou shouldest
do these things? Now before this, according to the
same account, our Lord was merely walking in the
temple: he had not therefore yet begun even to teach,
though that might have been construed into the unjust
assumption of authority in question ; nor was he per-
forming miracles. It follows then, that the question
must be understood reflexively ; not of what he was
doing exactly on that day or at that time, but of what
he had done the day before, and when he cleansed the
temple. Once, at the beginning of his ministry, a si-
milar act was performed by him, and followed substan-
tially by a similar question?: What sign dost thou
shew us, that thou doest these things ἡ which was vir-
tually to ask by what authority he did those things.
For none but a Prophet of acknowledged dignity, none,
perhaps, at this period of Jewish history but the Messiah
himself, could lay claim to, or exert as his own, such a
jurisdiction as this; and by asserting his right to this
- our Lord virtually asserted himself to be the Messiah.
At the beginning of his ministry the Jews, as yet igno-
rant of the nature or of the grounds of his pretensions,
might well ask by what authority he did such things;
and at its close, when they had long made up their minds
not to acknowledge them, they might just as naturally
do the same. Why then we may ask, did not the San-
hedrim put this demand on the Tuesday, the day after
the first cleansing, instead of deferring it until the
Wednesday, the day after the second ? If there was
but ove cleansing, and that on the Tuesday, their con-
duct admits of explanation. The question might have
been concerted on the evening of the Tuesday, and
preferred on the morning of the Wednesday; and this
part of our Lord’s conduct, by being probably the least
p John ii. 18.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 105
acceptable to all who had an interest in the main-
tenance of the abuse, if not to the people universally,
furnished, perhaps, the best and readiest handle against
— him of any.
Sixthly, when it is considered that our Lord attend-
ed the Passover three times, and other feasts, in the
course of his ministry, at least ¢wece; that his daily
resort, on these occasions, was to the temple; that the
profanation of the outer court was of long standing,
and certainly in existence three years before the pre-
sent time, yet nevertheless that he took upon himself
to repress it only twice ; between which instances there
is this remarkable coincidence, that the first was at the
very commencement, the second at the very conclusion
of his ministry: we may justly infer that he had suf-
ficient reasons for repressing it only twice, and that
the particular seasons, when he did so, were the best
which could be chosen for the purpose. This purpose,
I think, was to avow himself the Messiah as publicly
as possible—and not the less significantly, because by
an action and not a declaration. The propriety of such
an avowal, at the outset of his ministry, is undeniable;
and a little reflection will shew that it would be equally
well timed at its close. It could not prematurely en-
danger his safety then ; and it could as little accelerate
his death now. But we know not what it might have
done at any intermediate period. The same pruden-
tial motive, which, for a year and six months, kept
him away from Jerusalem altogether, would perhaps
have restrained him, if he had been on the spot, from
any such act as this.
Now the correspondency between the beginning and
the end of his ministry, and the use or design of the same
action with respect to each; cannot be otherwise pre-
served than by supposing it performed the same num-
106 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
ber of times at each. If he cleansed the temple only
once then, he would naturally cleanse it only once
now: if a single assertion of authority was sufficient
for the end in view at that time, a single assertion
might suffice for the same end at this. St. Mark’s
περιβλεψάμενος πάντα... ἐξῆλθε would scarcely be in-
telligible, if it did not imply that something ensued
from that examination on another day, which had not
followed on that; that in short it was a scrutiny of the
state of things at the time, preparatory to some correction
of them on the morrow. Our Lord had no object in this
first visit, except to fulfil the legal equity by present-
ing himself before God; and it was more in unison
with the meekness, which eminently became the spi-
ritual Antitype of the legal emblem, in which capacity
he both presented himself, and was about to suffer,
that he should not perform such an act precisely at
that time and on that occasion. This reason would
not operate on the morrow; he would then be free to
assert what authority he pleased: and the very pur-
poses of his ministry from that time forward, both to
impress all with a proper respect for his character, and
to remove every obstruction in the way of the resort
to his teaching, might actually require it.
Seventhly, admitting the fact of an Anticipation in
St. Matthew, we may yet advance some reasons to ac-
count for it. |
I. There is nothing in this part of his narrative which
would not be strictly true, if referred to the following
day. Jesus entered into the temple of God on this
occasion; he did so on the next: he cast out those who
were buying and selling; he must have done the same
again in the morning, even if he had done it already
the evening before. The whole account consequently
may be strictly parenthetic.
Proceedings of Tuesday in Passion-week. 107
II. If we except the incident respecting the fig-tree,
which happened before the arrival in the temple, there
is nothing recorded of the events of the eleventh of
Nisan even by St. Mark, whose account is the most
particular of any, but this act of cleansing the temple;
and by St. Matthew there is nothing recorded at all.
Yet, as our Lord came to the temple early, and did
not leave it again until late, he must have passed a
whole day there. It follows then, that during an en-
tire day’s continuance in the temple there was no one
transaction, except the act of cleansing the temple,
which any of the Evangelists considered sufficiently
memorable to deserve express mention. Compare this
silence, and the inference thence deducible, with the
number, the variety, and the circumstantial detail of
particulars recorded on the following day; and it may
be considered not improbable that the peculiar tran-
quillity of the day before was due to the awe inspired
by this act of cleansing itself. |
If then this particular transaction, as it stands in
St. Matthew, does not belong to the eleventh of Nisan,
we possess from him no account of the events of that
day (at least within the temple) whatever. Admitting
therefore that it may be an irregularity, still we may
explain the irregularity if it relates to the only event
on the Tuesday in Passion-week, which he thought it
necessary to record. With his usual attention to con-
ciseness in the merely historical portions of his narra-
tive, he has joined it to the account of the transactions
on the Monday; but he has joined it in such a man-
ner, as by no means to imply a strict order of sequence
in the course of events. It would be an additional
motive to the Anticipation, that this act, whensoever it
took place, happened as Jesus came into the temple ; it
was the first thing done either that evening, or on the
108 Dissertation Thirty-ninth.
following morning.» Besides, there was this connection
between the same act of cleansing, and each of these
visits, that it must have been conceived at the one,
though it might not have been executed until the
other. Ina word, the Anticipation is justified by the
necessity of the case, and amounts only to a single day.
If St. Matthew intended to relate nothing which tran-
spired on the following day, and yet wished to perpe-
tuate this particular fact, he must relate it ou¢ of its
place; and next to its own in the order of succes-
sion, the place where he has inserted it was clearly
the most convenient of any. —
DISSERTATION XL.
On the proceedings of Wednesday in Passion-week, and on
the time of the unction at Bethany.
THE transactions of this day, which answers to the
morning of the Jewish twelfth of Nisan, and to the Ju-
lian third of April, are not only the most diversified in
their circumstances, and the most minutely related, but
the most interesting in themselves of any which have
yet been considered. The day, too, is memorable as
the close of our Lord’s public ministry : after this time,
until the morning of the crucifixion, he never appeared
openly again. It was, consequently, a remarkable co-
incidence, resolvable perhaps solely into the agency
of a controlling Providence; that the last and con-
cluding scene of his ministry furnished the clearest in-
dications, which had yet been exhibited, both of the
malice, the hypocrisy, and the subtlety of his enemies
on the one hand, and of his own wisdom, power, and
Divine authority on the other.
The arrangement of its particulars is easy and ob-
vious; since, with one exception which will be noticed
in its place, the narratives of the several Evangelists
concur in the order of their accounts. The conclusion
also of St. John’s Gospel, from xii. 37. to 50, will be
found to belong to the same day.
The first circumstance is manifestly the renewal of
the conversation, in reference to the fig-tree, Mark xi.
20-26: the time and the place of which must conse-
quently have been either the same as those of the ori-
ginal incident the day before, or not much different
from them. The sequel of this history is evidently like
110 Dissertation Fortieth.
the resumption of a former topic; and we have seen
too many instances elsewhere of similar repetitions, to
be surprised at the recurrence of the same sentiments,
and even of the same expressions.
The motive to the renewal of the conversation might
obviously be the same as the cause of the original dis-
course; admiration of the effect produced, and a secret
wish to possess the power which produced it. Nor is it of
any importance from what quarter, whether one of the
disciples or more, the allusion in question proceeded. If
the motive to the allusion was the same, or if the allu-
sion was merely an accidental, yet still a natural remark,
our Lord might found upon it the same kind of reflec-
tions as before. Yet is there a perceptible difference
in the account of what he zow said, compared with
what he had said before; proving the two occasions to
be distinct. Mark xi. 22, 23, 24, is not the same with
Matt. xxi. 21, 22: and Mark xi. 25, 26, contrary to
that Evangelist’s usual practice, even supplies some-
thing more as said, which is not to be found in St.
Matthew.
Nor can it be urged in explanation of this omission by
the latter, that the part so left out was irrelevant to
the scope and drift of the part recorded. For besides
its general use, as prescribing a certain condition to
the success of prayer to God in behalf of sins univer-
sally ; (which is its primary intention ;) it is applicable
even to the case of prayer for the success of the mira-
culous faith in particular. _ Without charitableness and
a disposition to forgive, as eminently the qualification
of a Christian minister in general, God might no more
cooperate with the prayer of fazth for the performance
of a miracle, than with the prayer of »epentance for the
forgiveness of sins. Nor is this the only occasion ἅ,
a See Luke xvii. 3, 4, 5.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 111
when the doctrine of charity is seen to go hand in
hand with the doctrine of the miraculous faith.
The remaining events of the day are to be divided
into those which occurred in the temple, before our
Lord quitted it for the night; and those which oc-
curred out of it, after he had quitted it for the
night.
The particulars of the first division consist chiefly of
a series of questions, put to our Saviour one after an-
other, until he had successively foiled the interrogators,
or replied to all their inquiries: so that, from that time
forward, no man durst ask any more. The two first
of these questions turned upon a civil or political, much
more than upon a religious or doctrinal point: the two
last were purely of the latter description. The final end
proposed by them all, except perhaps the last, was sinis-
ter; that of the two first, to render our Lord amenable
to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim, or to the
civil jurisdiction of the Roman governor; that of the
third, if not of the fourth, by a perplexing and an ap-
parently insuperable difficulty to lower his credit as a
teacher. The parties, from whom they proceeded,
were in every instance one or more of the three exist-
ing and principal sects, the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
and the Herodians; the two former a philosophical or
religious denomination ; the latter, probably a civil;
retaining though covertly the principles of Judas of
Galilee ; which accounts for the question put by them.
In all of them, however, the Pharisees in general, and
the leading members of the Sanhedrim in particular,
appear to have taken either openly or in secret the
most active and the most influential part.
When, therefore, we consider the common anti-
pathy and want of union, prevailing in other respects
between these sects, and yet the concurrence of all not
112 Dissertation Fortieth.
merely simultaneously, but in a regular order of suc-
cession, to injure or to criminate our Saviour, we may
justly conclude that they did not act at random, nor
independently of each other; but upon some precon-
certed plan, and with a mutual understanding. They
had agreed to forget for the time their preexisting jea-
lousies and differences of opinion; while they aided
and supported each other in a common attack upon our
Lord. It is true, the method of disputation among the
Jews was purely dialectic ; that is, by asking questions
and receiving answers. But on no occasion, except
this, may each of the sects in its turn be seen united
in a single endeavour to puzzle or to ensnare the same
person, with their most difficult or most dangerous prob-
lems ; and like so many ἔφεδροι successively entering the
lists against him. We may argue, therefore, that they
acted on a scheme concerted overnight ; and that our
Lord’s oldest, most inveterate, and most powerful
enemies, the Pharisees, were probably the contrivers
and abettors of the plan. Nor is this supposition with-
out its use in accounting for the immediate origin of
that highly-wrought invective, which will be found re-
corded as the last event of the proceedings in the tem-
ple for the day; and which our Lord, in his turn, Je-
velled against that sect in particular. The present,
however, is not the place to enter upon the considera-
tion of any of these questions, further than as concerns
the order of their succession in the general arrange-
ment of facts.
First, then, while Jesus, after his return to the tem-
ple, as St. Mark informs us, was still walking about
therein; and as St. Matthew, or St. Luke tells us, when
he was teaching, or beginning to teach, and to preach
the Gospel ; the entire body of the Sanhedrim, or a de-
putation from each of its members, ‘the chief of the
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 113
Priests, the Scribes, and the Elders *—came upon him
_ with the interrogation, By what authority doest thou
these things? the reference in which to the act of
cleansing the temple we have already considered. If our
Lord had either not yet begun to teach, or only just
done so, the time of this question would be very probably
soon after πρωΐ. The question would be publicly put,
and the answer to it would be publicly returned: but the
consultation of the Sanhedrim upon the answer must
have taken place apart: that is, in their own conclave,
or council-chamber, the site of which was upon the
confines of the priests’, and of the men’s, courts respect-
ively. The history of this transaction is remarkably
similar in each of the narratives.
Upon the close of this account, St. Matthew subjoins
the moral illustration of the father, and the two sons?;
the application of which by our Lord shews that it
had reference to the preceding question, and therefore
might have been suggested by it. The point of the
comparison must be sought for in the historical fact of
the different success of the same preaching of John,
like the alleged different success of the same request
of the father; of the former with two very different or-
ders of persons, the Scribes and the Pharisees, on the
one hand, and the publicans and sinners, on the other;
of the latter with his two sons, as the first or as the last
addressed respectively. The antecedent self-righteous-
ness of the Scribes and Pharisees answered to the ap-
* Each of these classes, it is be included: and from Rev. iv.
probable, consisted of twenty- 4, it may be presumptively col-
four persons, making up the lected of the Elders, or Πρεσβύ-
number seventy-two in all. This repo: in. which case, it must
is certain of the Heads of the have been true of the Scribes,
courses, or ᾿Αρχιερεῖς, among ΟΥ̓ I'pappareis, likewise.
whom the High-priest also would
b Ch. xxi. 28— 32.
VOL. III. I
114 Dissertation Fortieth.
parent readiness of the last addressed; the antecedent
wickedness and impenitence of publicans and sinners
to the apparent refusal of the first. Yet the preach-
ing of John had failed with the former, and succeeded
with the latter; as the second son had broken his ori-
ginal promise, and the first had retracted his original
refusal.
That St. Mark omitted this discourse is nothing ex-
traordinary ; and that St. Luke did so is explained by
a comparison with Luke vii. 29, 30, which is substan-
tially to the same effect. The parable of the vine-
yard let out to husbandmen is a parable of a different
description, recorded by each of these Evangelists, and
by each in a consecutive order. Nor could it have
been long over, before another of the same class, re-
corded by St. Matthew only, the parable of the wed-
ding-garment, was also subjoined; the omission of
which in St. Mark is to be explained as before; and
its omission in St. Luke by its partial resemblance to
a parable, which was previously recorded by him and by
him alone, the parable of the great supper °.
The next incident appears to have been the question
concerning the payment of tribute to the Roman em-
peror, who, at this time, was Tiberius Cesar; touching
consequently upon the principles first openly avowed
in U.C. 760, by Judas the Gaulanite, commonly called
the Galilean. This question was put by the Herodians;
but it was suggested and abetted by the Pharisees:
and the account of its circumstances, though substan-
tially the same in all, is yet much closer together in
St. Matthew and St. Mark, than in either and St. Luke;
whose conciseness in particular is easily explained by
the minuteness of the other two. Yet with his usual
attention to precision, he has specified most distinctly
© Ch. xiv. 15—24.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 115
both the design proposed by the question, and the ef-
fect produced by the answer. Writing also for Gentile
readers, and not with the associations of a Jew him-
self, he suppresses the name, while he describes the
character, of the instruments now employed; viz. as
parties suborned, or put forward by others; feigning
themselves s7ghteous, that is, actuated by a zeal for
God—whose exclusive right to the civil obedience of
the Jews was the question concerned in the solution of
the practical difficulty, respecting the payment of tri-
bute to Cesar. This assumption of pretended right-
eousness appears in the language of their hypocritical
compliment to our Saviour, at the outset of the ad-
dress; as recorded by St. Mark. δΔιδάσκαλε, Rabbi or
Master, we know that thou art ἀληθὴς, a plain-spoken,
sincere, and honest man; who, when the truth is con-
cerned, carest for no one: for thou payest no respect
to the person of men; but teachest of a truth the way
of God. The name of Herodians does not occur in the
Gospel of St. Luke.
The next circumstance on record is the question
proposed by the Sadducees; in which, though the
Pharisees might have rejoiced to see Jesus perplexed
by it, unless they had their own mode of solving the
problem, they could not, perhaps, openly have concur-
red: for the belief in the resurrection of the dead, so far
at least as was implied by a belief in the immortality
and metempsychosis of the human soul, was a point of
distinction between them and the Sadducees: of which
Acts xxiii. 6. 8. alone is a proof. It is the object of this
question, while it seems to acknowledge the futurity
of a resurrection, in reality to endeavour to disprove it ;
assuming, indeed, a false principle, viz. that the ac-
quired relations, which before existed between the
children of this life, will exist between the children of
12
116 Dissertation Fortieth.
the resurrection; and consequently that the relations
of marriage, which were established here, will be re-
cognised and perpetuated there. Admit this principle,
and also the truth of the fact which they allege, and
which, though an exaggerated, might yet be an actual
case; (nor does our Lord argue with them on the
ground of its falsity;) and such an absurdity would
result, as to discredit the futurity of any resurrection
whatever.
Our Saviour’s answer is directed accordingly, first
to the exposure of the fallacy of their assumption ;
which being destroyed, the question of a resurrection
to come is left free to its proper arguments of convic-
tion: and, secondly, to establish that futurity upon
such authority as the inquirers themselves acknow-
ledged ; the testimony of the word of God in the Pen-
tateuch. This then is the first inquiry which was
strictly doctrinal; concerning the knowledge and in-
terpretation of the ancient Scriptures, as much as the
wisdom and authority of our Saviour: and St. Mat-
thew, by the usual note of time in this instance, which
he premises to other remarkable passages in the course
of his Gospel, ἐν ἐκείνη τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἃ, does as good as pre-
pare the way for the introduction of a new and a more
important topic.
The primary intention of the institution of mar-
riage, in the infancy of the human race, was doubtless
the multiplication of mankind; and its first and most
direct effect was the preservation of the species amidst
the constant decay and destruction of the individuals.
It was so far a remedy for the curse of mortality, en-
tailed upon men by the sin of their first parents; since
though individual men and women all died and must
die, yet men and women, by the appointment of mar-
@ Ch. xxii. 23.
117
riage, still were and still will be kept. alive. And
doubtless this effect will continue until the multiplica-
tion of the human species reaches to that extent, which
is its proposed limit in the purposes of the Divine Pro-
vidence: and then the resurrection of the dead, it may
be expected, will ensue. But when this has come
to pass what further need can there be of marriage?
for both the species of mankind can receive, or can
require no more augmentation, beyond its preexisting
multiplication; and the individuals, male or female,
who compose it, will no longer be mortal as before.
For none, who have once been raised from death to
life, will be liable to die again in the same sense as
before. This truth seems to be intimated by our Sa-
viour’s words in disproof of the assumption of the Sad-
ducees : οὔτε yap ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται: They neither
marry, nor are given in marriage—for neither can they
die any more; that is, they are immortal *.
With regard to the harmony of the several accounts,
every discrepancy is trifling, except what concerns the
terms or the order of our Lord’s reply. The method
of arranging this will best be exhibited in its place
hereafter ; and I will observe only at present that the
concluding words of St. Luke’s account, πάντες ‘yap
αὐτῷ ζῶσιν, are parallel in point of construction to this
passage of Josephus: ot τεθνήκασι τὸ πλέον ᾿Αντιπάτρῳ f
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week.
* Trenzus, Opera, 191. 19:
lib. 11. cap. lxii: καὶ διὰ τοῦτο,
. , “a > ον Ὁ » A
πληρωθέντος Tod ἀριθμοῦ οὗ αὐτὸς
» n~
παρ᾽ αὐτῷ προώρισε, πάντες οἱ ἐγ-
’
γραφέντες εἰς ζωὴν ἀναστήσονται,
3, » , NV 297 a+
ἴδια ἔχοντες σώματα, καὶ ἰδίας ἔχον--
\ . 9 ’ » Ω
τες ψυχὰς, καὶ ἴδια πνεύματα, ἐν οἷς
εὐηρέστησαν τῷ Oem... καὶ παύ-
e Luke xx. 36.
σονται ἑκάτεροι τοῦ γεννᾷν ἔτι καὶ
γεννᾶσθαι, καὶ γαμεῖν καὶ γαμεῖσθαι"
4 : - -
ἵνα τὸ σύμμετρον φῦλον τῆς προ-
, > A -
ορίσεως ἀπὸ Θεοῦ. (legendum for-
san, τῆς προωρισμένης ὑπὸ Θεοῦ)
> ἃ > \
ἀνθρωπότητος ἀποτελεσθεὶς (lege
ἀποτελεσθὲν) τὴν ἁρμονίαν τηρήσῃ
τοῦ πατρός.
f Bell. i. χχχίϊ. 2.
ae
118 Dissertation Fortieth.
—or to this: εἰδότες ὅτι of διὰ τὸν Θεὸν ἀποθνήσκοντες
ζῶσι τῷ Θεῷ, ὥσπερ ᾿Αβραὰμ, ᾿Ισαὰκ, καὶ ᾿Ιακὼβ, καὶ πάν-
τες οἱ πατριάρχαι 8.
The answer, as we learn expressly from St. Luke and
by implication from St. Mark, gave so much satisfac-
tion to certain Scribes present—doubtless of the sect
of the Pharisees—as to draw forth an open avowal of
their approbation; Διδάσκαλε, καλῶς εἶπας. Its effect
upon the multitude is stated by St. Matthew only; but
the impression it produced upon the interrogators, as
the sect of the Sadducees in particular, that they durst
not ask him any thing more, that is, try to renew the
dispute either on that, or on any other subject, is no-
ticed most distinctly by St. Luke. This sect therefore
was now put to silence.
One of the above-mentioned Scribes, as we may col-
lect from St. Mark, it was consequently, who put the
next question, concerning the greatest commandment
in the Law; which St. Luke has omitted altogether,
and St. Matthew has recorded only in part; the reason
of which omission, and why St. Mark was probably
induced to give a further, and a more distinct account of
this incident than St. Matthew had given, cannot now
be stated at large; because they are both closely con-
nected with the parable of the good Samaritan, related
exclusively by St. Luke. The motive of this inquirer
I believe was good; and therefore that St. Matthew’s
πειράζων, in reference to his act, must be literally in-
terpreted of making trial only, and with a sincere
desire of information. Nor when he says, just before,
that the Pharisees were collected together, is it im-
plied that this man was put forward by the rest;
or acted as their spokesman, and not of his own
& De Maccabzis, 16.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Pussion-week. 119
accord *, It may be inferred from both Evangelists,
that the terms of the question were probably these—
ποία ἐστὶ πρώτη πασῶν ἐντολὴ. καὶ μεγάλη ἐν τῷ νόμῳ;
and the terms of our Lord’s decision, as a categorical
answer to a categorical question—airyn ἐστὶ πρώτη, Kat
μεγάλη, ἐντολή ὃ ---ἀο so far confirm the inference.
After this, as we learn from St. Mark, No man durst
ask him any more questions: an observation, which
comes somewhat later in St. Matthew, viz. at the end
of the next transaction; but is clearly to be nriderstood
reflexively of the effect of this.
The whole time hitherto taken up it may not be
possible exactly to determine; but the last particular
could not be much earlier than the incident relating to
the widow’s mite; nor that incident than the com-
mencement of evening service, one of the stated times
when such oblations were wont to be made; viz. from
the ninth hour of the day to the eleventh.
While the Pharisees were still assembled together,
as we learn from the same authority, and consequently,
not long after the last question; our Lord, in his turn,
began to interrogate them, by demanding publicly
whose son the Christ was to be. Now it appears from
St. Mark and from St. Luke, who do not mention his
personally addressing himself to the Scribes and. the
Pharisees in the first instance, but suppose him to
argue directly from some tenet or admission of their's,
that his motive, in putting the question, was to make
them commit themselves by returning the answer ;
upon which, without continuing to speak to them, he
* The Pharisees being ἃ dis- collected together; so many at
tinct body, whose numbers, in least of them, as happened to be
his own time, Josephus repre- present at a given time and in a
sents at 6000—they might be given place.
h Matt. xxii. 38.
I 4
120 Dissertation Fortieth.
must have turned to the people, and reasoned on the
answer as St. Mark and St. Luke describe him to have
done. Nor is St. Matthew at variance with them: for
first, in direct refutation of the answer of the Pha-
risees we may suppose our Lord to have said to them
-πῶς οὖν Δαβὶδ, ἐν πνεύματι, Κύριον αὐτὸν cadet; and
then, turning to the auditors, as St. Mark and St. Luke
each imply, to have reasoned more at length, πῶς λέ-
ryoucw οἱ l'paupareis, «, 7... with which the residue
of St. Matthew’s account is obviously reconcilable.
This incident also furnishes a strong argument in
favour of the proper divinity, and yet of the proper
humanity of Jesus Christ; without the admission of
both which a Socinian of the present day would be as
much puzzled by our Saviour’s question as a Pharisee
of old. The true drift of that question is to prove the
divinity of the Christ, and yet not to dispute or dis-
prove the humanity; and to those who acknowledge
both these truths, but to those only, there is no diffi-
culty how to answer it. I apprehend that it was
never meant to be denied, neither by our Lord him-
self, nor by those to whom he was speaking, that the
Christ was to be the Son of David; but I do appre-
hend it was meant to be implied by him, whether they,
with whom he was arguing, were disposed to admit it
or not, that he was also to be the Son of God. For if
the Christ was the Lord of David, the Christ was
superior to David; and if the Christ was superior to
David, the Christ was something more than the Son
of David: that is, besides being the Son of David, he
was also the Son of God. The Christ, therefore, was
both man and God; man, as the Son of David, and
God, as the Son of God. It is impossible that these
distinctions can hold good of the Christ, if his genera-
i Matt. xxii. 43.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 121
tion was altogether in the natural way; but they may
| obviously do so, if the Christian doctrine of the Incar-
‘nation is scriptural and true: for then the Christ, by
the assumption of flesh in the womb of the blessed
Virgin, became as truly the Son of David, as by virtue
of his eternal generation he was previously, and still
continued to be the Son of God.
After this we must place Mark xii. 38-40, and
Luke xx. 45-47, the first personal and direct attack
upon the Scribes, as recorded by St. Mark and by
St. Luke in terms almost the same; and which it is
impossible to confound with that longer and later in-
vective, Matt. xxiii. throughout. First, because this
is levelled against the Scribes as such alone; that, at
the Pharisees also, or at the Scribes only as the same
with the Pharisees; so that in none of the woes,
though eight times repeated, does the mention of
either occur apart from the other. Yet Scribe and
Pharisee were not necessarily convertible terms, as
Acts xxiii. 6. alone would be sufficient to prove ™*.
Secondly, because this was addressed, as we learn
from St. Luke, to our Lord’s own disciples in parti-
cular; that, to the multitude at large, or to others as
well as to them. Thirdly, because this is levelled
against a single vice, the pride or arrogance of the
parties addressed ; that, against a complication of
vices. Fourthly, because this can, on no principle, be
considered merely as an epitome of that; and if it is
not an epitome of it, it must be distinct from it.
Fifthly, because a good reason may be assigned why St.
Luke in particular might omit the second invective,
though he recorded the first, provided they were really
distinct ; viz. its resemblance to what he had related
* The Scribes were probably the Pharisees might belong to
all of the tribe of Levi; but any of the tribes.
122 Dissertation Fortieth.
before *; but no reason, why he should record one —
sentence, and not the remainder of the same discourse.
Sixthly, because such a discourse as the invective re-
corded by St. Matthew must needs have been recited
in full; or omitted altogether. It is so entirely one
piece—so connected from beginning to ending—so so-
lemn, energetic, and dignified, considered in any point
of view; that no Evangelist would have thought of
exhibiting it in detail, nor except as one whole. Se-
venthly, because this preliminary caution may be very
well attributed, on the principle of association, to the
preceding conversation; errors in doctrine, if author-
ized by any party or persons, naturally suggesting
errors in practice, which may be countenanced by the
same. Eighthly, because it may be regarded as a be-
coming prelude to the more serious invective, about to
ensue ; and would render that the less unexpected, when
it arrived. Ninthly, because that invective was clearly
the fruit of a long accumulation of offences, and due
to many serious grounds of rebuke; but chiefly to the
sin and the guilt of infidelity, and to the failure of
our Saviour’s personal ministry with the people at
large; a guilt and a failure, supposed to lie mainly
at the door of the parties addressed ; whose systematic
hostility and opposition to him, with their influence
over the common people, were principally chargeable
with the result. Tenthly, because after the delivery
of that longer invective it is morally certain that our
Lord immediately left the temple, and never returned
to it again: whereas St. Mark and St. Luke both attest
that, when he had made an end of the former address,
he spent some time in contemplating the resort of the
people, with their respective contributions, to the trea-
sury; upon which occasion they record the anecdote
k Ch. xi. 37—the end.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 128
of the poor widow’s mite. If he was sitting at the
time in the women’s court, (which John viii. 20. ren-
ders probable,) his position was favourable to that
survey; for the treasury or corban was situated in
that court, and over against its porches*!, Ai στοαὶ
δὲ μεταξὺ τῶν πυλῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ τείχους ἔνδον ἐστραμμέναι
πρὸ τῶν “γαζοφυλακίων, «,7.. Between the time of
that address then, and the time of the next in St. Mat-
thew, there must have been some interval; and it is a
further proof of this fact that, with the account of the
widow’s offering, the other two conclude their history
of the transactions in the temple altogether; and
what they next relate is our Lord’s passing out of
it for the night. The anecdote of the widow’s mite
was consequently one of the last, but it was not the very
last of these transactions: it could not have followed
after Matt. xxiii. at least; it must have come, there-
fore, between that and Mark xii. 40, or Luke xx. 47.
After this event, but before the next, it seems the
most convenient place to insert John xii. 37. to the end ;
alluded to above. First, because from the express testi-
mony of verse 36, what is afterwards recorded must have
happened subsequently to the tenth of Nisan, the day
of our Lord’s first visit to, and departure from the tem-
ple; and subsequently also to the evening of that day,
which we have shewn to have been the time when he
quitted the temple. Secondly, because it is equally
certain from xiii. 1. that it must have transpired before
sat there in particular for a
similar reason, that the female
* The treasury was situated
in the women’s court, no doubt,
that the women, who might be
disposed to make contributions
to it, might have access to it ;
as was the case with the widow,
when she threw in her mite.
Our Lord, too, appears to have
Israelites might have access to
him, as well as the male, whe-
ther to hear his discourses, or
to partake of the benefit of his
miracles.
1 Jos. Bell. Jud. v.v. 2.
124 Dissertation Fortieth.
the thirteenth of Nisan, when St. John, as we shall see,
resumes the thread of his account, upon the evening
prior to the passion. If so, it must have come between
these extremes exactly; later than the tenth, but
earlier than the thirteenth of Nisan; and consequently
either on the eleventh or on the twelfth.
That the discourse here recorded was delivered in
the temple may be taken for granted; and our Lord it
will be said was on both the above days in the temple,
and, therefore, that it might have been delivered on
either of them. But from the strain both of the Evan-
gelist’s reflections, 37—43, and of the discourse itself,
it can be referred to no day with so much propriety as
the last day of our Lord’s public ministry; that is,
the twelfth of Nisan: nor for the same reason to any
period of that day, except just before he left the temple.
The reflections of the Evangelist are intended to account
for the continued infidelity of the Jews, notwithstanding
the many proofs which Jesus had exhibited before them;
and to shew that the failure of his ministry at last was
due not to any defect in the means of conviction, on
his part, but to a moral incapacity of being rightly in-
fluenced by them, on their’s: reflections, which would
be natural and in character at the close of our Lord’s
ministry, when there was an end of the endeavour,
and a certainty of the failure to convince; but not be-
fore it, when the process of conviction was still pend-
ing and the result of the process was still doubtful.
The tenor of our Saviour’s words is in unison with the
same conclusion. They are to be regarded as a final
warning; declaring, for the last time, what should be
the consequence of ultimate perseverance in unbelief :
and this is especially observable of verse 47, to the end
—Kal ἐάν τις μου ἀκούση ..... οὕτω λαλῶ. Under this
word, which he had preached among them, are included
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 125
all the personal exertions and all the proper evidences
of his ministry. The time when it should cease to be
preached was now arrived; and having been preached
to the last, as it had all along before, without avail, it
should thenceforth be laid up—a faithful witness both
of what our Lord himself had done to effect the conver-
sion of the Jews, and of what they, by their obstinate
impenitence, had frustrated—ready to be produced, as
their accuser and their condemner, at the last day.
This point being presumptively established, we may
much more confidently assume that the next transaction,
the denunciation of woes against the Scribes and Pha-
risees, which takes up the whole of Matt. xxiii. was
immediately followed by the departure from the temple.
It is morally certain that a direct attack, like this, on
his worst and most powerful enemies, would be reserved
by our Lord for the close of the day. Nor, if we con-
sider the warmth and vehemence of the invective; the
spirit which animates the whole, beginning in a tone
as calm and dispassionate, as it is firm and collected,
but gradually taking fire as the discourse advances, and
kindling at length into a terrific blaze of indignation ;
when we consider the keenness, and yet the justice of
its reproofs; the open exposure, which it makes, of the
artifices, the delusions, the hypocrisy, and the wicked-
ness of the most arrogant, and the most influential
sect of its time: can we suppose they could hear it pro-
nounced, without the utmost exasperation; nor that,
having formally bid them defiance, and inflamed their
resentment and their malice to the highest degree, our
Lord would continue much longer among them. Be-
sides, if any regard is due to the plain meaning of
terms, not to say to his own veracity, it can scarcely
be doubted that, as he delivered the concluding sentence,
, ΤΟΥ ὟΝ ” ἢ 2
λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν" ov μή με ἴδητε ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι, ἕως ἂν εἴπητε" εὐ-
126 Dissertation Fortieth.
λογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Kvpiov—he would both
leave the temple, and never again return to it. With
this event then the account of transactions on the
twelfth of Nisan, within the temple, must be con-
cluded.
The particulars subsequent to this, on the same day,
were first, the observation made by some one or more
of the disciples, as they were passing out of the temple,
and personally addressed to our Lord, on the beauty
and magnificence of its structure; an observation, me-
morable not only for the immediate answer which it
drew forth from him, but also for its connection with
the prophecy on the Mount; which seems to have ul-
timately been due to it. In this fact all the three
Evangelists are agreed. Secondly, the prophecy upon
Mount Olivet, delivered as we learn from St. Mark to
four of the Apostles, Peter and Andrew, James and
John, apart from the rest; and recorded also, either
wholly or in part, by each of the same Evangelists.
On the harmony of their accounts, however, I could not
fully enter at present, without combining the expla-
nation of the prophecy itself; and that is too closely
connected with the kindred subject of the parables to
be here attempted.
Yet the proceedings on the evening of this day are
not, perhaps, completed with the close of this pro-
phecy; for if I mistake not, another incident not less
important, and not less distinctly recorded, than any
of the rest is still to be referred to it: preparatory to
which, however, it is necessary we should first say
something on the several accounts of the unction at
Bethany. Observing therefore simply that the place
and purport of the remark, subjoined to St. Luke’s re-
lation of the prophecy™, are a proof that he considered
m Ch. xxi. 37. 38.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 127
our Lord’s public ministry to have been concluded this
day, and consequently with the evening of Wednesday
_in Passion-week, I shall proceed to that question.
The unction at Bethany is recorded by St. Matthew,
St. Mark, and St. John": between any of whose ac-
counts, and Luke vii. 36—50, where also an unction is
related, the difference is, as I think, so palpable and so
indisputable, that, notwithstanding the trouble which
some learned men have taken to prove them the same, I
should consider it a waste of time and argument seri-
ously to prove them distinct*.
It may be regarded as no less certain that each of
these accounts is a narrative of the same material fact ;
or that the unction in St. John was the same event with
that in St. Matthew and in St. Mark. So far as they
all agree, the identity in question is proved by this agree-
ment; and even where they differ, it is merely on points
which must have been purposely omitted by them, and
purposely supplied by St.John. The motive to the
entertainment, as connected with the miracle of Laza-
rus; the relation of one of his sisters, Martha, to the
master of the house; and the name of the other, Mary,
as the agent in the unction; the mention of Judas as
either the sole, or the most prominent party in the
murmuring ascribed to the disciples, and the motive by
which Ais complaint in particular was actuated ; these
are circumstances altogether passed over by St. Mat-
thew and St. Mark, yet necessary to the historical in-
tegrity of the whole narration; and they are all either
expressly, or by implication to be found in St. John.
Even in the terms of our Saviour’s reproof, which had
* Cf. Origen, Operum iii.892. in Matt. Series 77. which treats
D.—894. Εἰ. οὐ Commentariorum of these several unctions.
n Matt. xxvi. 6—13. Mark xiv. 3—g9. John xii. 2—8.
128 Dissertation Fortieth.
been the most fully recorded by them, and therefore is the
least particularly insisted on by him; he has yet sup-
plied one sentence, at the outset of the address, which,
because repeated substantially in the course of it, had
probably been omitted by them.
Now the place of the unction in St. John is clearly
on the evening of the arrival at Bethany; which, as it
has been shewn, according to the Jewish reckoning,
was the evening of the ninth of Nisan: its place in
St. Matthew, or in St. Mark, is at the close of the pro-
ceedings on the twelfth. In this case, if St. John’s
order is regular, their’s it would seem, must be irre-
gular. And yet I shall endeavour to shew that, though
his order exhibits no Anticipation, neither does ¢hei7’s
any ‘T'rajection.
No account, which happens to be merely introduced
in the regular course of events to explain what came
to pass at one time, though it may itself belong to an-
other, can be considered strictly an instance of a Trans-
position : still less so, where there is such a connection
between the two, that the later event was a conse-
quence of the prior. The account of the death of John
the Baptist, though it occurred in St. Matthew and in
St. Mark, some months after that death, and more than
a year after his imprisonment, was yet no irregularity ;
because it was inserted to explain something which
was passing at the time. It was an historical paren-
thesis, or a recapitulation of the past for the sake of
the present; but no Trajection. And this, as it ap-
pears to me, is the true statement or description of the
Transposition in the present instance also. It was not
designed on its own account, but for the sake of
a further topic; the history of the treachery of Ju-
das.
This history is divisible into three stages, each of
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 129
which has been accurately defined ; the first cause and
conception of his purpose; the overt step towards its
execution ; and lastly, its consummation. On none of
these points but the first is there any difficulty. The
consummation took place in the garden of Gethsemane;
the overt step was the compact with the Sanhedrim ;
the first cause and conception of the purpose, if they
are to be traced up to any thing on record, must be
referred to what happened at the unction in Bethany.
There is no evidence that any such design had been
formed before Passion-week in general, nor before the
time of the supper and the unction during that week in
particular. Here, however, the implicit testimony of St.
John may justify us in placing it; and its motive will
be that disappointment of the avarice of Judas, on which
the Evangelist principally insists ; as well as probably
the offence which he might take at our Saviour’s re-
buke, personally levelled against his complaints.
Let us suppose then that the design having been
now formed, or a sufficient foundation for its formation
hereafter having been now laid, the overt step of commu-
nicating with the Sanhedrim was taken on the evening
of the Wednesday afterwards. If St. Matthew and
St. Mark record that step, as they do record it, in its
proper place; viz. upon the day when it was taken;
what was more natural than that they should premise
an account of the unction also? This is precisely the
case to which our distinction between a Transposition
as such, and a merely historical explanation, would be
strikingly apposite. To have related the effect, with-
out specifying the cause, would have been under any
circumstances repugnant to the reason of things; but
to have perpetuated the treachery of Judas, without
assigning also the motive which led to it, would have
been unworthy of the candour of Gospel historians;
VOL. 111... K
1 30 Dissertation Fortieth.
and to suppose a monstrous and unnatural effect (for
what could be more so, than the betrayal of Jesus by
one of his own Apostles 9) without a cause, and much
more an adequate cause. It was due to the inno-
cence of our Lord himself, that the baseness of the
treacherous disciple’s motive, which only could have
prompted him to so unnatural an act, should be fitly
represented ; without exaggeration indeed, yet in its
simple and naked atrocity.
The overture of Judas to the Sanhedrim could not
have taken place before the Wednesday in Passion-
week, nor ater than the Thursday. Both these pro-
positions may be asserted with confidence ; the latter
because the consummation of his treachery itself ensued
early on the morning of the Friday, and there was
some interval, after the proposal to the Sanhedrim, dur-
ing which he was waiting for an opportunity to execute
his compact; the former from what is related, in each
of these instances, concerning the consultations of the
Sanhedrim before®. They would neither have been
deliberating how they might secure possession of the
person of Jesus, nor have come to the resolution of at-
tempting nothing against him until after the feast, if
Judas had made his overture already. If then this
deliberation took place on the evening of the Wednes-
day, the overture of Judas had not been received before
the evening of the Wednesday.
The same conclusion follows from what was so often
repeated, at certain times, on the days before, that the
enemies of our Lord, had they not been restrained by
their fear of the people, would gladly have laid hold upon
him on the spot. I conjecture therefore that the over-
ture was made at this critical moment, directly after the
© Matt. xxvi. 3—5. 14—16. Mark xiv. 1, 2. 10, 11. Luke xxii. 2. 4, 5.
Proceedings on Wednesday in Passion-week. 19]
deliberation in question ; when, as removing the only
difficulty in the way of their designs, viz. how to lay
hands on Jesus δόλῳ or covertly, it would be gladly
accepted. There was an opportunity for making it,
after our Lord had left the temple, and while he was
subsequently engaged in the lengthened conversation
on the mount, attended by four only of the Apostles,
and consequently in the absence of the rest; which
would be as convenient for the purpose of Judas, as if
it had been intentionally afforded him. Nor is it im-
probable that Matt. xxvi. 2, which is immediately sub-
joined to the close of the prophecy, may contain a sig-
nificant allusion to the execution of some such purpose
at that very time. And, if we consider the state of
irritation in which our Saviour had recently left the
Sanhedrim, a circumstance which could not be un-
known to the traitor, perhaps his cupidity could not
have selected a more favourable moment for making
the most advantageous bargain.
There can be no objection to this account of the
Transposition in St. Matthew and St. Mark, except
the supposition that the breast of the Apostle must
have harboured his design three or four days before
he executed it. But this objection would be frivolous.
The mind which could conceive was manifestly capable
of harbouring such a design. The crime of Judas
could derive no extenuation unless perhaps from the
impulse of sudden passion; and even that cannot be
pleaded in its behalf; for he acted deliberately and
with premeditation throughout. He must in any case
have been conscious of his purpose, and pondering
with himself the means of its execution, long before he
carried it into effect. Hence, if passion had ought to
do with the first conception of his design, malice and
K 2
132 Dissertation Fortieth.
hardness of heart must have been mainly concerned in
its consummation.
I shall conclude, then, by observing briefly that the
language and manner of all the Evangelists are in
unison with these conclusions. St. Matthew’s exordium
is to be rendered thus: Now when Jesus was in Beth-
any; and St. Mark’s the same: And as he was in
Bethany; where the καὶ is equivalent to δέ. St.
Luke, alluding to the design as formed but not yet
executed, speaks accordingly : Now Satan had entered
into Judas—and he went his way. The τότε therefore,
Matt. xxvi. 14, is to be referred to xxvi. 5; and the καὶ,
Mark xiv. 10, to xiv. 2; upon which respectively they
would be strictly consecutive: the intermediate matter
in each instance being entirely parenthetic. Lastly,
had the execution of the purpose of Judas taken place,
in any sense, on the same night when it was conceived ;
if St. John related the circumstances which gave occa-
sion to the conception, he would have mentioned also
the effect which arose out of it. His silence therefore
as to any such consequences at the time of the unction,
may be presumptively an argument that none such fol-
lowed immediately after the unction. Yet he himself
demonstrates plainly that they had happened before the
night of the Thursday?: they had happened there-
fore sometime between the Saturday and the Thurs-
day.
P Ch. xiii. 2. 11. 26—-30.
DISSERTATION XLI.
On the time of the celebration of the last Supper.
‘THE question which we have now to consider, con-
cerning the time of the celebration of the last supper,
is confessedly among the most difficult, if not the most
difficult, to which an Harmony of the Gospels is liable.
The nature of the difficulty may be briefly stated as
follows: that the night, when our Saviour celebrated
his Passover, was not the night, when the rest of the
Jews celebrated thei7’s: and the origin of the difficulty
in this instance, as well as in other cases of a like kind,
is due to a seeming discrepancy between the existing
Evangelical accounts.
The existence of a discrepancy, indeed, on such a sub-
ject, if dispassionately considered, ought to be presump-
tively an argument that the testimony of one of the
Gospel historians, rightly ascertained, cannot be really
but only seemingly at variance with the testimony of
another. The four accounts may be virtually reduced to
two—St. Matthew’s and St. John’s—St. Mark and St.
Luke concurring substantially with the former, and all
three, as far as there is any difference among them,
differing in common from the latter. Now St. Matthew
and St. John were each Apostles, and each a party on
this occasion in the celebration of the supper. It is ut-
terly absurd, therefore, to suppose that either could be
ignorant of the time, when they and their Master con-
curred in the performance of this solemnity ; and whe-
ther that time was the same or not with the time, when
the rest of the nation were engaged on a similar festi-
val. It is not less absurd to imagine that, though both
K 3
- 134 Dissertation Forty -first.
might have known this once, either of them subse-
quently forgot the truth of the fact; and from inad-
vertency or from forgetfulness gave an erroneous, or a
contradictory account. ‘The circumstances connected
with the fact, even humanly speaking, were too me-
morable in every point of view, not to be indelibly
impressed upon their recollection.
It is absolutely certain also, as far as any past fact
is capable of being rendered certain, that St. John
wrote long after the other Evangelists, and especially
after St. Matthew; and was, as well aware what ac-
count had been given by them on this, or on any other
particular of the Gospel history, as we ourselves at pre-«
sent. Common sense and common candour, then, should
lead to the inference that, on this point, no insuperable
difficulty will be found really to exist; that in setting
forth, as the last of the Evangelists, a different account,
or what might appear prima facie a different account,
of the same things, St. John must have known he was
not endangering the authority of his predecessors : that
the cause of Christian, as well as of historical truth,
had nothing to fear from the collision ; all the accounts
were consistent and true: the later differing from the
earlier only in being more explicit, or in determining
some things with historical precision which had been
merely generally stated before.
That the supper, which our Lord celebrated with
the Apostles the night before he suffered, is called and
is to be considered, in some sense, as a Passover, ap-
pears indisputably from Matt. xxvi. 17-20. Mark xiv.
12-17. and Luke xxii. 7-14: but especially from Luke
xxii. 15. when the celebration was actually begun.
That this was the same supper, as that which begins to
be related John xiii. 1. and continues to be related until
John xviii. 1. is equally certain both from many com-
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 135
mon circumstances belonging to each, and because the
event of the supper was the same in each; viz. that
Jesus, the same night and after the celebration of this
supper, was betrayed.
Yet this supper, at the very commencement of the
13th chapter of St.John, is declared to be πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς
τοῦ πάσχα: during its celebration the feast is supposed
to be still to come*: the morning after the supper is call-
ed the παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχαῦ : the Jews, who brought
our Lord that morning to Pilate, would not enter the
Pretorium, lest they should be defiled, but ἵνα φάγωσι
τὸ πάσχα": and in the course of the deliberations, re-
specting the disposal of Jesus, Pilate speaks of the
Passover as either at hand or only just begun that
morning, but not yet past’: Ye have a custom that I
should release for you some one at the Passover.
The import of all these testimonies is clearly to
establish the conclusion that, at the time of the sup-
per the night before, the feast of the Passover was
not yet come; and to this effect the first of the num-
ber, perhaps, is the most important and the most deci-
sive of any. It is possible to distinguish between the
Paschal sacrifice as such, and the feast of unleavened
bread. The proper name of the former is τὸ πάσχα:
the proper name of the latter ra ἄζυμα : the proper
time of the former was the fourteenth of the month
Nisan; the proper time of the latter from the fifteenth
to the twenty-first inclusive. The sacrifice, however,
of the Passover was so intimately the prelude to the
feast of unleavened bread, and the absence of leaven
was so essential a condition to the ceremonial of the
Passover itself, that neither the phrase τὰ ἄζυμα, or ἡ
ἑορτὴ τῶν ἀζύμων, can be employed ἁπλῶς, without in-
a Ch. xiii. 29. b Ch. xix. χὰ; ς Ch. xviii. 28. d Ch, xviii. 39.
e Cf. Origen, ii. 239. A. in Leviticum Homilia ix. 5
K 4 :
136 Dissertation Forty-/irst.
cluding the Paschal supper; nor the phrase τὸ πάσχα,
or ἡ ἑορτὴ Tov πάσχα, Without including the feast of
unleavened bread. Much less is it possible that the
phrase, ἡ ἑορτὴ τοῦ πάσχα, should be so employed for
the feast of unleavened bread in the complex, and not
include the feast of the Paschal sacrifice in particular.
Such at least is not the usage of St. John, nor of any
other of the writers of the New Testament; as the
following examples will prove.
Kai ἐγγὺς ἣν τὸ πάσχα τῶν “lovdaiwv. John ii. 13—
Ἔν τῷ πάσχα, ἐν τῆ ἑορτῇ. ii. 98--- Ἐν τῇ ἑορτῆ᾽ καὶ αὐ-
τοὶ “γὰρ ἦλθον εἰς τὴν ἑορτήν. iv. 4---ν δὲ ἐγγὺς τὸ
πάσχα, ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων. vi. 4---Ἦν δὲ ἐγγὺς τὸ
πάσχα... πρὸ τοῦ πάσχα. Xi. δδ----[Πρὸ ἐξ ἡμερῶν τοῦ
πάσχα. Xii. 1. ,
Τὸ πάσχα γίνεται .... Th δὲ πρώτη τῶν ἀζύμων.
Matt. xxvi. 2. 17—-To πάσχα καὶ τὰ ἄζυμα. Mark
xiv. 1—T¥ πρώτῃ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν ἀζύμων. xiv. 12—Ty ἑορτῇ
τοῦ πάσχα. Luke ii. 41---" Ηγγιζε δὲ ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν ἀζύμων,
ἡ λεγομένη πάσχα. xxli. 1-- Ἦλθε δὲ ἡ ἡμέρα τῶν ἀζύμων,
ἐν ἣ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ πάσχα. xxii. 7---͵-Ημέραι τῶν ἀζύμων
. μετὰ τὸ πάσχα. Acts xii. 8. 4-—Mera τὰς ἡμέρας
τῶν ἀζύμων. xx. 6. Compare also 1 Cor. ν. 7. and He-
brews xi. 28.
The usage of the writers of the New Testament is
in this respect the same with that of the contem-
porary Jewish author, Josephus; and all together
establish this rule, that where the phrase, τὸ πάσχα, is
not distinctly opposed to the phrase, ra ἄζυμα, they are
each inclusive of the other, and the complex, ἑορτὴ τοῦ
ἠάσχα, is absolutely equivalent to the complex, ἑορτὴ
TOV ἀζύμων.
Τῆς τῶν ἀζύμων ἐνστάσης ἑορτῆς, Φάσκα παρὰ τοῖς ᾽Ἰου-
δαίοις καλεῖται. Bell. Jud. ii. i. 5----ἰ Εἰπὲ τὴν ἑορτὴν τῶν ἀζύ-
μων. Ib. xii. 1--- - [ἣν τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτήν. Ib. 6—Ths τῶν
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 137
ἀζύμων ἑορτῆς ἐνστάσης. Ib. xiv. 3—Kara τὴν ἑορτὴν τῶν
ἀζύμων. iv. vii. 2—T4s τῶν ἀζύμων ἐνστάσης ἡμέρας, τεσ-
σαρεσκαιδεκάτῃ Ξανθικοῦ μηνός. V. ili. 1—IIpos τὴν τῶν
ἀζύμων ἑορτήν. Vi. V. 8.--- Ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτήν ...
ἐνστάσης ἑορτῆς" πάσχα καλεῖται. Ib. ix. 8.
Γ) - cy ‘ Ν », e , ‘ e A
Ὅθεν νῦν ἔτι κατὰ τὸ ἔθος οὕτως θύομεν, THY ἑορτὴν
πάσχα καλοῦντες" σημαίνει δὲ ὑπερβασία. Ant. Jud. ii.
xiv. 6-—OGev eis μνήμην τῆς τότε ἐνδείας ἑορτὴν ἄγομεν ἐφ᾽
ἡμέρας ὀκτὼ, τὴν τῶν ἀζύμων λεγομένην. Ib. xv. 1---- ᾧ δὲ
μηνὶ τῷ ΚΞανθικῷ .... τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτη κατὰ σελήνην...
τὴν θυσίαν... πάσχα λεγομένην . . θύειν ἐνομίσε.. πέμπτη
δὲ καὶ δεκάτη διαδέχεται τὴν τοῦ πάσχα ἡ τῶν ἀζύμων
e , eee , δὲ , ~ A ,
ἑορτή. Ib. iii. x. 5—Ove de τότε πρῶτον ... THY πάσχα
λεγομένην. Ib. xii. 6—Kara τὴν ἑορτὴν τῶν ἀζύμων. Ib.
xv. 3—Tiv Φάσκα ἑώρταζον. v. i. 4.-.-[ὴν. τῶν ἀζύμων
ἑορτὴν ἄξοντα---- Ἐνστάσης δὲ τῆς τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτῆς, θύ-
σαντες τὴν λεγομένην πάσχα. ix. xiii. 2. 3—T ny ἀζύμων
e A A A U ’ 9 3 , A
ἑορτὴν, καὶ τὴν πάσχα λεγομένην. X. iv. ὅ---- Εἰνστάσης δὲ
τῆς τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτῆς ... καὶ τὴν πάσχα προσαγορευο-
μένην θυσίαν. Xi. iv. 8—Kara τὸν καιρὸν τῆς τῶν ἀζύμων
ε ἀν τὰ ’ , κ᾿ - ι A ,
εορτῆς, ἣν Φασκα λέγομεν---- Γὴν εορτὴν . -. THY καλουμένην
Φαάσκα. xiv. ii. 1. 4---Ὀνστάσης . . . ἑορτῆς, ἐν ἣ ᾿Ιουδαίοις
+? ’ , , A ς e A a
ἄζυμα προτίθεσθαι πάτριον᾽ πάσχα δὲ ἡ ἑορτὴ καλεῖται.
Xvii. ix. 8----Γῶν ἀζύμων τῆς ἑορτῆς ἀγομένης, ἣν πάσχα
καλοῦμεν---ν αὐτοῖς ἑορτή" πάσχα δὲ καλεῖται. ΧΥ]]]. ii.
2. ἵν. 3—Tis πάσχα προσαγορευομένης ἑορτῆς ἐνστάσης,
καθ᾽ ἣν ἔθος ἐστὶν ἡμῖν ἄζυμα προσφέρεσθαι. ΧΧ. ν. 8.
With respect to Philo Judeus, though he commonly
expresses the Hebrew Pascha by its equivalent Greek
term, ἡ διάβασις, or τὰ διαβατήρια, the same usage is
observable in him also. Axo καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς διαβάσεως αὐ-
τῶν, ὃ καλεῖται πάσχα: 1. 117. 1. 31. SS. Legum Allego-
riarum iii. Vide also Ibid. 174. 1.25—-35. De Sacrificiis
Abelis et Caini. Οὗ χάριν διείρηται καὶ ἐπὶ πικρίδων τὰ
ἄζυμα ἐσθίειν : Ibid. 542. 1.45. De Congressu que-
138 | Dissertation Forty-first.
rende eruditionis gratia—Terapry δὲ, τῶν διαβατηρίων,
aA a , Φ Ψ Ψ ’ A a
ἣ καλεῖται πάσχα .... ἕκτη δ᾽, ἄζυμα----υνάπτει δὲ... τοῖς
διαβατηρίοις ἑορτὴ, διάφορον ἔχουσα καὶ οὐ συνήθη τῆς τρο-
pis χρῆσιν, ἄζυμα, ad’ οὗ καὶ ὠνόμασται : ii. 4978. 1. 90---- .
22; 293.1.1—3. De Septenario et Festis Diebus.
In like manner Ezechiel Tragicus, as quoted by
Kusebius in the ninth book of his Evangelica Prapa-
ratio.
Λέξεις δὲ λαῷ παντί Μηνὸς οὗ λέγω
διχομηνίᾳ τὸ πάσχα θύσαντας Θεῷ
τῆς πρόσθε νυκτὸς, αἵματι ψαῦσαι θύρας.
᾿
Lib. ix. cap. 29. 443. A.
And again,
Ad’ ἧσπερ nods ἐφύγετ᾽, Δἰγύπτου γ᾽ ἄπο
ἑπτὰ διοδοιποροῦντες ἡμερῶν ὁδὸν,
’
πάντες τοσαύτας ἡμέρας ἔτος κάτα
ἄζυμ᾽ ἔδεσθε, καὶ Θεῷ λατρεύσετε. Ibid. B.
And again,
Ταύτην δ᾽ ἑορτὴν Δεσπότῃ τηρήσετε
ἕφθ᾽ ἡμέρας, ἄζυμα, κοὐ βρωθήσεται
ζύμη. Ibid. D. 444. A.
In order to remove the difficulty in question, or to
reconcile the express testimony of St. John with the
apparent testimony of the other Evangelists, most com-
mentators have supposed either that our Lord with his
disciples anticipated by one whole day the regular time
of the Passover ; or that a part of the Jews, with whom
he concurred, kept their Passover on one day, and the
rest, with whom he differed, kept their’s on the next.
To those who should maintain that there was no dif-
ference in this respect between him and the Jews at
large, or that all kept their Passover alike, viz. on the
night before Jesus suffered, what has been proved con-
cerning the signification of πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα,
standing absolutely in St. John’s Gospel, must be a
sufficient answer. In defence of the same opinion they
are obliged also to give a novel and an untenable sense
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 139
‘to the same word, in the other instances of its occur-
rence, iva φάγωσι τὸ Tacxa—and, ἣν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ
πάσχα: and that too not the same sense in both, but
as much at variance, the one with the other, as either
with the truth of the case.
In the first they would restrict the word to the sacri-
fices which made a part of the ceremonial of the seven
days’ feast, distinct from the sacrifice of the Passover it-
self; grounding this construction on Deut. xvi. 2, and
forgetting that, whereas there is but this one text, either
in the Old or in the New Testament, where the word
Passover might be interpreted in this catachrestic sense,
there are innumerable passages in both where it can be
construed only properly. This very text is understood
by Maimonides® to denote the peace-offerings, which
were required to accompany the Passover on the four-
teenth day of the month; in which case, though these
might be intended here, yet on the morning of our
Saviour’s crucifixion both they and the Passover would
either both be over, or both still to come; over, if the
Passover had been celebrated already; to come, if the
Passover was to be celebrated that evening.
But whatever the terms τὸ πάσχα, standing by
themselves, could be shewn to mean, this would be of
little avail upon the point at issue, unJess it could be
also proved that the phrase which is actually here em-
ployed, τὸ φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα, is ever used of any thing
but eating the Paschal sacrifice as such. Those, who
by the Law would be bound to eat of any sacrifices
during this feast in particular, distinct from that, would
be the Priests or the Levites. - During the seven days
of the ἄζυμα as such, says Josephus, καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἡμέ-
pay, ταῦροι σφάττονται δύο, καὶ κριὸς μὲν εἷς, ἑπτὰ δὲ ἄρ-
ves. καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ὁλοκαυτοῦται., προστιθεμένου τοῖς πάσι
© De Sacrificio Paschali, x. 12.
140 Dissertation Forty-first.
δι... ε A ¢ 7 ς 5 , 4 ε , € 4
Kal epipou, UTEP ἁμαρτάδων, εις EUWX LAV κατα ἡμεβρᾶν εκαστῆὴν
f, And again, ταύτας ... (86. Tas ὑπὲρ ἁμαρ-
τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν
τάδων θυσίας) ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ μόνοι δαπανώσιν οἱ ἄῤῥενες τῶν ἱε-
βέων αὐθημερόνδ. Now those who conducted our Lord
to Pilate it cannot be proved were exclusively Priests
or Levites. On the contrary, according to St. John’s
account, whatever share in his deduction the members
of the Sanhedrim also might have taken, they must
have been among others the parties who first appre-
hended him—y σπεῖρα, καὶ ὁ χιλίαρχος, καὶ ot ὑπηρέται hs
and these in particular could have had no motive to
deter them from entering into the judgment-hall of a
Gentile magistrate, except the ordinary dread of such
pollution as would have prevented their taking part in
any ceremony of the Law, which like the Paschal feast
required them to be clean. And that contact with a
Gentile might have produced such pollution is too well
known to need any proof.
In the second instance, it may be admitted that the
word παρασκευὴ, standing absolutely, might be under-
stood to denote προσάββατον: and such is its mean-
ing in the phrase, παρασκευὴ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων, John ‘xix.
31. 42, which follows afterwards. This παρασκευὴ,
according to Josephus, began on the day before the
sabbath, with the ninth hour!: ἐν σάββασιν, ἢ τῆ πρὸ
ταύτης παρασκευῆ, ἀπὸ ὧρας ἐννάτης : Which explains at
once the propriety of Mark xv. 44 : ἐπεὶ ἣν παρασκευὴ,
ὅ ἐστι tpocaBBarov—and the meaning of Matt. xxvii.
62; rh δὲ ἐπαύριον, ἥτις ἐστὶ μετὰ THY παρασκευήν----ΟΥ Of
Luke xxiii. 545; καὶ ἡμέρα ἣν παρασκευὴ, καὶ σάββατον
érébwoxe—where this verb has its secondary sense of
was coming on, not, was dawning.
In the complex, παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, however, it is
f Ant. Jud. iii. x. 5. & Ibid. iv. iv. 4. h xviii. 12. 28. i Ant.
Jud. xvi. vi. 2.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 141
by no means certain that the phrase can bear the simple
sense of προσάββατον. The Passover was of importance
enough to have a period, called its παρασκευὴ, appro-
priated to it exclusively. As equivalent to προσάββα-
τον, that period would be limited to between the ninth
hour, or three in the afternoon, on the Friday, and
sunset; but the παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, according to St.
John *, had begun either as early as six in the morn-
ing, or not later than twelve at noon. Though, how-
ever, even in the complex, it might bear the simple
sense of προσάββατον ; how would that prove the Pass-
over to have been kept already, and at the usual time ὃ
Προσάββατον τοῦ πάσχα, if it denotes the day before
the Paschal sabbath, means either the day before the
Jifteenth, or the day before the twenty-first, of Nisan,
both which, whensoever they might fall, were by the
appointment of the Law to be kept as sabbaths, and,
consequently, were strictly the Paschal sabbaths'!. The
day before the twenty-first, I apprehend, must be out —
of all question; and the day before the fifteenth is the
Jourteenth, the very day of the Passover itself.
But if προσάββατον τοῦ πάσχα does not mean the
day before a Paschal sabbath as such, what can it
mean but the day before the sabbath ἁπλῶς ? and how
could that be confounded with the day before the sab-
bath in the Paschal week—which would be a specific
designation? We might as well contend that σάββα-
τον, standing alone, would denote the ordinary sabbath
of the Paschal week, as that προσάββατον would the
ordinary day before that. The προσάββατον is merely
so much of the seath day of the week, as was in any way
devoted to preparation against the seventh; which,
consequently, might always be express and intelligible,
k Ch. xix. 14. 1 Exod. xii. τό. Lev. xxiii. 7,8. Numb. xxviii. 18. 25.
142 Dissertation Forty-first.
with reference to that day as such—but not to that
day, as one of the days of the Paschal feast. If the
phrase παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα were equivalent, in this
sense, to the phrase προσάββατον τοῦ πάσχα, it would
require to be rendered as follows, and unless so ren-
dered it would not be understood: The preparatory
part of the Friday before the Saturday in the Paschal
week—than which, what can be further from the pro-
per sense of the terms? Yet even this explanation,
harsh as it is, will not hold good in the present in-
stance, except at the expense of a still greater absur-
dity; which is that of making any part of one sab-
bath preparatory to another. The Friday in the Pas-
chal week is supposed, upon this principle, to have
been the fifteenth of Nisan; and the fifteenth of Nisan,
whensoever it fell, was a sabbath. The preparation
on this Friday, then, with a view to the Saturday,
would be the preparation on one sabbath with a view
to the arrival of another: than which conclusion there
cannot be a greater inconsistency either with the na-
ture of terms, or with the nature of things. For the
preparation was necessarily part of a dies profestus—
and never of a sabbath.
We have still, therefore, to choose only between the
two alternatives stated above: with respect to which,
could it be shewn that, on so important a subject, as
the time of celebrating the first and most cardinal fes-
tival in their calendar, any schism or misunderstanding
could possibly prevail among the Jews; more especially
any such schism or misunderstanding, as might arise
from an inability to compute the days of the month
aright, so that what one party reckoned to be the lunar
fourteenth of Nisan was really the lunar fifteenth, or vce
versa; if the astronomical canons, the oral testimony,
or the actual phasis of the new moon, by which the
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 143
first day of this month was wont to be fixed, were li-
able to mislead; or if they were capable of misleading
once, that they might not mislead repeatedly; if the
influence of the Pharisees, who are supposed to have
decided upon a wrong day, was not at this time alto-
gether paramount, so as even to have given public sanc-
tion to an error; or, if in fact there was any material
difference of opinion, upon this point at least, between
them and the Sadducees, the Karaites, or any other sect;
could these things, I say, be proved, the explanation of
the present difficulty, which proceeds ape them, might
be entitled to some attention.
But until this can be done, we have no option except
to embrace the remaining alternative, which assumes
that our Lord in particular antedated, by one day, the
true time of the Passover: and if it can be made to ap-
pear that he had special reasons for so doing—reasons,
which rendered it absolutely impossible that he could
keep the Passover at its usual time on the occasion be-
fore he suffered—the truth of this alternative may be
considered as sufficiently established. Although there-
fore, the existence of the present difficulty has exercised,
more than any one thing, the sagacity and ingenuity of
commentators, so that little, perhaps, remains to be said
either on one side or on the other; I shall proceed to
state what arguments may be urged in support of the
opinion in question; but with as much conciseness and
perspicuity as possible.
I take it for granted that the legal period, at which
only the Passover could be duly celebrated, was the
fourteenth of the month Abib, Nisan, or Xanthicus,
κατὰ ceAnvyv'; and consequently that the question is,
t Exod. xii. xiii. 4—8. xxiii. 15. xxxiv. 18. Lev. xxiii. 5—8. Numb, ix.
2. 3. xxviii. 16—25. xxxiii. 3. Deut. xvi. 1—8. Josh. v. 10. 1f. 2 Chron.
ΧΧΙΧ, XXX. I—3. 15. 21. XXXV. I—~19. Ezra vi. 10.
144 Dissertation Fortyirst.
whether our Lord celebrated it on this day or on the
day before it; on the fourteenth, or on the thirteenth
of the month prescribed. As to the day of the week
there can be no uncertainty. It was the day before he
suffered; and that day was Friday: his Passover
therefore was kept on the night of the Thursday.
First then in St. Matthew’s account of our Saviour’s
message to the man in the city, the particular stress
which is laid upon the circumstance ὁ καιρός μου ἐγγύς
ἐστιΐ, may justly be considered to imply that the Pass-
over, about to be celebrated, was something out of course.
The man, to whom the message was sent, was probably
a believer in Christ; or our Saviour would not address
him in such terms as the Master saith. Now the in-
junction of the Law, and the invariable practice of the
Jews, both required that the Passover should be kept
within Jerusalem; and our Lord manifestly complies
with each so far as to send his disciples to make ready
for him zz the city. But when it is considered that the
resort of strangers, at the seasons of the feasts and in
peaceful times, was such as many times to double its or-
dinary population; it will be evident that, for the accom-
modation of so great an influx of visitors, the houses of
the regular inhabitants must all have been thrown open
to their reception. Μυρίοι yap ἀπὸ μυρίων ὅσων πόλεων, οἱ
μὲν διὰ “γῆς, οἱ δὲ διὰ θαλάττης, ἐξ ἀνατολῆς καὶ δύσεως, καὶ
ἄρκτου καὶ μεσημβρίας, καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἑορτὴν εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν καταί-
povo.w’. And that this is no exaggerated description ap-
pears from the numbers assembled at the Passovers U.C.
819. and U. C. 823. respectively Y—the former of which
as we shall see elsewhere amounted to two or three mil-
lions, and the latter to more than one million. It was an
ἔθος πάτριον, says Josephus*, to receive into Jerusalem,
u Ch. xxvi. 18. v Philo Judeus, ii. 223. 1. 15—18. De Monarchia ii.
w Vide the Appendix. x Bell. iv. iii. 3.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 145
wav TO ὁμόφυλον ἀπαρατηρήτως. Nor was even this fa-
cility of admission, at such times as those of the Pass-
overs, sufficient for the reception and entertainment of
all parties, without the further necessity of forming
themselves into pparpia, sodalitia, companies, or house-
holds; varying from ten to twenty in number.
The message of our Lord, then, though sent to an
householder in Jerusalem, announcing in his own name
and in that of his Twelve disciples, that he meant to
keep the Passover at his house; if sent at the regular
time, would have been nothing extraordinary. It was
what any one, under such circumstances, might have
undertaken to send: the right of admission into some
house within the city belonged to every stranger, whe-
ther from Judzea, from Galilee, or from abroad, who
came up to attend the feast. What necessity, then, for
an especial reason—or even for any reason at all—in
claiming it now? and why should not the simple noti-
fication of our Lord’s wish, if made at the regular sea-
son and in the regular manner, have been sufficient,
particularly for a disciple ?
It is impossible to understand his ézme, or rather his
season, of any thing but the season of his passion ; that
determinate period which St. John so often and so em-
phatically denominates his hour. If this season was
the following day, and also the season of the Passover,
then, if under such circumstances our Saviour proposed
to keep his Passover at all, he must keep it at an unusual
time; if he must keep it at an unusual time, he would se-
lect the house of some believer in himself; and in sending
a preparatory message to a believer, he might assign such
a reason as this—My time is at hand—I am to suffer to- ©
morrow—and, therefore, though it is before the usual
period, I shall keep my Passover with thee to-night. A
disciple of or believer in Christ would neither dispute his
VOL. III. L
146 Dissertation Forty-first.
commands, nor question the propriety of his conduct.
Hence it is, that the Apostles themselves appear to have
been already aware of his purpose; and taking it for
granted that he would keep his Passover that night, they
come to him in each of the Evangelists simply to inquire
in what place. There is no difficulty in conceiving that
he had previously acquainted them with his intentions
on the morning of the Thursday ; or even on the night
of the Wednesday.
If we are to believe the testimony of Philo Judzeus,
the master of every household, or some one fit person
in the name and on the behalf of a particular Paschal
company, which in the present instance would be
Peter or John, without having recourse to the minis-
try of the regular priesthood, was empowered to act
as his own priest—and consequently, as we may
presume, at home, not in the temple—for the immola-
tion of his peculiar Paschal victim. This testimony
is so express, and as coming from a contemporary Jew,
who had often partaken in the ceremony himself, is so
justly entitled to credit, that it ought to outweigh an
host of the rabbinical writers, who certainly give a
different account; which shall be my excuse with the
reader, if I transcribe it at full length.
I. Τῷ δὴ μηνὶ τούτῳ, περὶ τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην ἡμέραν,
μέλλοντος τοῦ σεληνιακοῦ κύκλου “γίνεσθαι πλησιφαοῦς,
ἄγεται τὰ διαβατήρια, δημοφανὴς ἑορτὴ, τὸ Χαλδαϊστὶ λεγό-
μενον πάσχα᾽ ἐν ἣ οὐχ οἱ μὲν ἰδιῶται προσάγουσι τῷ βωμῷ
τὰ ἱερεῖα, θύουσι δὲ οἱ ἱερεῖς, ἀλλὰ νόμου προστάξει σύμπαν
τὸ ἔθνος ἱερᾶται, τῶν κατὰ μέρος ἑκάστου τὰς ὑπὲρ αὑτοῦ
θυσίας ἀνάγοντος τότε, καὶ χειρουργοῦντος .
II. Καὶ ἣν Ἑβραῖοι, πατρίῳ "γλώττη, πάσχα προσαγο-
ρεύουσιν' ἐν ἣ θύουσι πανδημεὶ αὐτῶν ἕκαστος, τοὺς ἱερεῖς
αὐτῶν οὐκ ἀναμένοντες" ἱερωσύνην τοῦ νόμου χαρισαμένου τῷ
y Operum ii. 169. 1. 16—24. De Mose, iii.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 147
ἔθνει παντὶ μίαν ἡμέραν ἐξαίρετον, ava πᾶν ἔτος, εἰς αὐ-
τουργίαν θυσιῶν ὅ.
111. Μετὰ δὲ νουμηνίαν ἐστὶν ἑορτὴ τετάρτη, τὰ διαβα-
τήρια, ἣν οἱ ᾿Ε βραῖοι πάσχα καλοῦσιν" ἐν ἣ θύουσι πανδη-
μεὶ, ἀρξάμενοι κατὰ μεσημβρίαν, ἕως ἑσπέρας . .. ἱερεῖς οὐκ
ἀναμένοντες. τὸ δὲ τότε (sc. at the time of the first
Passover) πραχθὲν δρᾷν ἐφῆκεν ὁ νόμος ἅπαξ κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν
ἕκαστον, εἰς εὐχαριστίας ὑπόμνησιν...- ἑκάστη δὲ οἰκία, κατ᾽
ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον, σχῆμα ἱεροῦ καὶ σεμνότητα περιβέβλη-
ται, τοῦ σφαγιασθέντος ἱερείου πρὸς τὴν ἁρμόττουσαν εὐω-
χίαν εὐτρεπιζομένου, καὶ τῶν ἐπὶ τὰ συσσίτια συνειλεγμένων
ἁγνευτικοῖς περιῤῥαντηρίοις κεκαθαρμένων" οἱ παραωγεγόνασιν
οὐχ ὡς εἰς τἄλλα συμπόσια, χαριούμενοι "γαστρὶ δὲ’ οἴνου
’ , 9 aA
καὶ ἐδεσμάτων, ἀλλὰ πάτριον ἔθος ἐκπληρώσοντες, μετ᾽ εὐχῆς
ν᾿ ὦ
τε καὶ ὕμνων.
δεκάτη τοῦ μηνὸς * ἃ,
* The account of Josephus,
Ant. Jud. ii. xiv. 6. iii. x. 5, or
Bell. vi. ix. 3, is not at variance
with this testimony of Philo’s.
The estimation of the number
of Paschal communicants, from
the number of Paschal victims,
in the way described by the last
of these passages, would still be
possible. Each of those vic-
tims might be taken up in the
name of a particular Paschal
company, and kept in the quar-
ter where the lambs, intended
for sacrifice, were usually taken
up and kept; viz. in the con-
clave agnorum, within the tem-
ple. By this means their tale
or number might be calculated.
The account of the Passover
kept by Hezekiah, 2 Chron. xxx.
15—17, leads presumptively to
a similar conclusion: for it would
not be mentioned as something
Z Operum ii. 206.1. 16—22. De Decem Oraculis.
44. De Septenario et Festis Diebus.
+x A e U Ud
αγεται δὲ 7] πάνδημος θυσία τεσσαρεσκαι-
extraordinary, that the Levites
had the charge of killing the
Passovers for every one that was
not clean, had it not been usual
for such as were clean to kill
their own. 2 Chron. xxxv. 7, 8,
g. also, the Passover-offerings for
the people as such, for the priests
as such, and for the Levites as
such, are all mentioned distinct-
ly ; and at verse 11. it is said
ἁπλῶς they killed; but with re-
spect to the priests and the Le-
vites, only that the former sprin-
kled the blood from their hands,
and the latter flayed the victims.
Perhaps this was the whole
which was done at any time.
The people themselves slew the
victims ; but brought the blood
to be sprinkled by the priests.
Ezra vi. 20. may be, understood
of such of the people as were
not clean.
a Ibid. 292. 1. 16—
L 2
. 148 Dissertation Forty-first.
The circumstances of the first Passover (Exod. xii..
6.) must evidently have been such as Philo describes ;
and if we consider the vast multitude of victims which
were required to be sacrificed on such occasions, a
multitude which Josephus computed at 256,500 *, and
the short space of time within which they must all
have been sacrificed, which he states likewise at merely
two hours, ἀπὸ ἐννάτης WAS, μέχρι ἑνδεκάτης: it is ut-
terly impossible that so many could be offered with-
in such a. time, unless all were offered at once; that
is, unless every master of a family was sacrificing
and preparing his own victim at the same moment
with another. I have been the more diffuse on this
subject, with a view to anticipate a possible objec-
tion; viz. how our Lord could have celebrated his Pas-
chal supper, out of the usual course, without attracting
any particular notice. The existence of the custom in
*
* This computation itself is it is necessary to conceive that he
probably below the truth; for
256,500, multiplied by ten,
would produce the sum only of
2,565,000: as the amount of
the persons who must have par-
taken in the Passover of U.C.
819, which Josephus states at
2,700,000. And that this state-
ment is not beyond the truth
may be collected from Bell. ii.
xiv. 3, where the same amount
is represented at not less than
three millions. Now it is very
possible that the precise sum of
2,565,000 might be called in
round numbers, 2,600,000 ; but
I do not see how, without a very
great inaccuracy, it could be
called 2,700,000; one hundred >
and thirty-five thousand beyond
the truth. Unless, then, we
should suppose that Josephus
has fallen into this inaccuracy,
originally wrote either 2,600,000
which was afterwards corrupted
into 2,700,000, for the number
of persons: or, 266,500, which
was afterwards corrupted into
256,500, for the number of vic-
tims. And this last is the more
probable state of the case; for
if the calculation in each in-
stance was expressed by multi-
ples of myriads, it was much
easier for xs’. μυριάδες (which
would denote 260,000) to have
been corrupted into κε΄. μυριάδες,
equivalent to 250,000, than for
σξ΄. μυριάδες (2,600,000) to have
been corrupted into co’. μυριάδες
(2,700,000). It is possible that
ς΄. might be converted into εἰ:
but it is not so conceivable that
ξ΄. would ever be confounded
with ο΄.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 149
question rendered it easy so to do, unknown to any
_but confidential persons, the master of the house, and
his own disciples.
Secondly, though the Sanhedrim, in their consultation
on the evening of Wednesday ”, came to the resolution
indeed of putting Jesus to death, yet they concluded
also not to effect the resolution, at least during the
feast ; ἵνα μὴ θόρυβος “γένοιτο ev τῷ λαῷ. The feast, as
it would be useless to deny, must have been begun
when the Passover day was arrived and past: hence if
Jesus was apprehended on the day after that, he must
have been apprehended in the midst of the feast. Where,
however, is the proof of any intermediate change in the
resolution of the Sanhedrim, which had come to a con-
trary conclusion? It cannot be said that the overture
of Judas, though made directly afterwards, produced
it; for that overture would rather confirm than alter
the preexisting determination. The object of the San-
hedrim was twofold; to get possession of Jesus δόλῳ
first, and to put him to death afterwards: and what
they were at a loss about for a time was the first of
these two things. The proposal of Judas, being the offer
of a confidential disciple to betray his Master, clearly
removed the difficulty upon this head: but they must
still have stipulated with him that he should effect his
engagement as secretly as possible, or St. Matthew,
St. Mark, and especially St. Luke, would not say that,
after concluding it, ἐζήτει εὐκαιρίαν τοῦ παραδοῦναι αὐτὸν
αὐτοῖς ἄτερ ὄχλου: which means, without trouble,
tumult, or disturbance; and not, without a multitude,
much less, the multitude.
The original precaution, then, of not attempting the
apprehension of Jesus during the feast, or in the open day
before the people, was not abandoned even at last; as
b Matt. xxvi. 3—5. Mark xiv. 1, 2. ¢ Luke xxii. 6.
L 3
150 Dissertation Forty-first.
the very circumstances of the apprehension itself prove.
And this would still be in unison with the event, if
our Lord was arrested on the night of the Thursday,
and put to death on the morning of the Friday ; be-
fore the feast was yet begun. Causas capitales, says
Maimonides, absolvunt eodem die ad innocentiam, sed
postero ad culpam‘; that is, a criminal was to be
tried on one day and executed on the next: and even
this principle of Jewish jurisprudence seems to have
been observed as far as the nature of the emergency
would permit; our Lord having been tried in the
night-time, and not delivered over to the governor
until the morning.
The Divine Providence might so order it, that the pro-
posal of Judas should be made to the Sanhedrim before
the feast, and neither during it nor after it; and the same
Providence might likewise so order it, that the neces-
sary opportunity for effecting his purpose should occur
the very night before the feast, and neither earlier nor
later. Now when he went out, as we shall see here-
after, upon receiving the sop, the night was somewhat
advanced, but the Paschal ceremony was far from
being over: and he went out, as the rest of the com-
pany supposed, to buy what was wanted against the
feast. He would go, then, as they supposed to the
shops, or where such things were to be procured. If
so, neither could it have been late in the evening on
any day, nor could it have been the evening of the
Passover on that day in particular. After sunset, on
the evening of the Passover, both because of the sab-
bath which would then have begun, and because of the
celebration of the Passover which would be going on,
no shop would be open in Jerusalem, nor any deal-
ings of buying or selling any longer practicable: all
d De Jurejurando, xi. 8. Dithmari Annott.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 151
persons, both old and young, both male and female,
both the inhabitants and the stranger, would then be
simultaneously engaged until midnight at least; if
they went out of their houses even before morning.
It is certain, however, that Judas must have gone
straight to the Sanhedrim, expecting to have access to
it; and as he received from the Sanhedrim the force
with which he accomplished his purpose, it is certain
also that he must have obtained access to it. The mem-
bers of that council, therefore, were either assembled
at the time of his arrival, or easily got together after-
wards; which renders it exceedingly improbable that
they were previously engaged on their respective Pass-
overs. The same thing is true of the band; all of whom,
the cohort, the captains, and the servants, we may take
it for granted, consisted of Jews; the former, of those
who had the custody of the temple, the latter, of
officers of the Sanhedrim. If so, these too would be
bound to keep the Passover that night; and unless it
had been already kept, or unless they had been pur-
posely disturbed while keeping it, they could not have
come on such an errand as this that night: it is not
even probable that they would have been sent upon it.
The young man also, spoken of by St. Mark, would
not have been alone on the Paschal night, when all
Jerusalem was divided into companies; nor abroad, so
soon after midnight at the latest, when all those com-
panies were in their respective homes. Nor would it,
I think, have been expressly mentioned, that they, who
brought our Saviour to the palace of the high priest,
after they had brought him thither, made a fire on
purpose against the cold: for if the night when they
brought him had been the Paschal night, every house-
hold on that night must have sat up until a late hour,
and fires would have been found burning all through
L 4
152 Disseriation Forty-first.
it. These circumstances may appear trifling; but
even these, on ove hypothesis, will all be consistent
and natural, and on the contrary supposition, incon-
sistent and unnatural. Nor can any hypothesis. be
true which does not account for every thing; nor ac- —
cord with the least matters of fact as much as with the
greatest. It is the criterion of truth alone, to apply
alike to both.
Thirdly, the attempts of Pilate to procure the re-
lease of our Lord were produced partly by a convic-
tion of the innocence of Jesus, and partly by the neces-
sity of compliance with a certain privilege of the feast.
Into the origin of this privilege we have no data which
would enable us to inquire. It could not be more an-
cient than the time of Coponius, when Judzea was first
reduced to the form of a Roman province; and very
probably did not continue longer than the time of
Pilate; on whose demise the Jews became subject not
to any new Roman procurator, but to a native king:
nor is it unlikely that it both began and ended with
the reign of Tiberius in particular*.
Its nature, however, is very well ascertained by the
language of the Evangelists themselves. Kara ἑορτὴν,
which means at every feast, or feast by feast, implies
that the people had a right to the liberation of some
one prisoner, of their own choosing, at the other two
great solemnities as well as at the Passover. It was
now the feast of the Passover, and Pilate reminded them
of their privilege accordingly®; and they themselves,
* From the notice which is fallen into disuse. If so, St. Mat-
thus taken of the fact, we may thew did not write before the
infer that none of the Gospel- ὀ first of Caius, U.C. 790; thatis,
historians, not even St. Matthew, for the first seven years after the
wrote before the privilege had Ascension, at least.
e John xyiii. 39-
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 153
as the other Evangelists testify, began shortly after-
wards to press him to do for them as he had ever been
accustomed to do*. The jealousy with which the com-
mon people would naturally watch over such a privi-
lege, the violence which had been probably committed
by Pilate not long before, the notoriety, and perhaps
the popularity of Barabbas, in whose favour they de-
sired its exercise, are presumptive reasons why they
would πού be slow to insist upon the recognition of
their right. But they could not have demanded it.
before the feast was begun, though they might not
delay to demand it as soon as it was. When, there-
fore, were they so likely to demand it as on the first
day of the feast itself? If so, the day of our Lord’s
crucifixion, when they did demand it, was the day
when the feast began; that is, the fourteenth of Ni-
san; for the feast could begin on no day but that.
On the same day, about the third hour, as the sol-
diers were conducting Jesus to Calvary, and either as
they were coming out of the Preetorium of Pilate, or
leaving the gate of the city, they fell in with Simon of
Cyrene entering Jerusalem ἀπ᾽ aypov: whom they com-
pelled to assist in carrying his cross. This mention of
a Jew, a native of Cyrene in Africa, and consequently
a Jew of the Dispersion; a stranger from a distant re-
gion, yet coming to Jerusalem, at this critical juncture,
from abroad; appears to me designed to intimate the
* And this circumstance, we teenth of Tiberius Cesar. At
may observe by the way, is a
proof that Pilate had been some
years in ofhice before our Saviour
was thus tried before him. It
is fatal, therefore, to any such
hypothesis as that of Mr. Mann ;
which makes our Saviour’s min-
‘istry last only one year, and
places its termination in the thir-
the Passover in the thirteenth of
Tiberius Cesar, Pilate, as I have
proved elsewhere, (vide Disser-
tation ix. vol. i.) had been only
six months in office; and had
witnessed at the utmost but two
solemnities, the feast of T'aber-
nacles and the Encznia, before
that very Passover itself,
154 Dissertation Forty-jirst.
arrival of such a Jew, to keep the Passover the same
day. For according to Maimonides‘, Decima et quarta
die mensis Nisan, ad solis ortum, si quis abesset ab
urbe Hierosolyma milliaria quindecim, aut eo plus, id
sane longum iter erat: qui vero minus spatii abesset,
nequaquam longo itinere remotus erat, quippe qui
poterat Hierosolymam advenire paulo post meridiem,
tametsi placide pedibus iret. It would not, therefore,
be too late for such an one to keep the Passover that
same day.
Fourthly, if our arrangement of the preceding days
of the week be correct, the course of particulars closed
with the evening of Wednesday, and with the pro-
phecy on the mount. At the end of that prophecy the
following words were subjoined£; And it came to pass
when Jesus had made an end of all these sayings,
that he said to his disciples, Ye know that after two
days the Passover taketh place, and the Son of Man
is delivered up to be crucified. Now two days from
the evening of Wednesday cannot possibly denote a
less time than the day but one after; that is, the
Friday following. Unless, then, it can be shewn that
we were wrong in supposing these words to have been
spoken on the Wednesday; that is, in supposing the
day of our Lord’s procession to the temple to have been
the Monday; the argument, deducible from the author-
ity of this passage, that the Passover would take place
on the Friday, and consequently that the Friday was
the fourteenth of Nisan, amounts to a demonstration.
It cannot be questioned that the Passover spoken of
is the stated and regular ceremony, so called: and I
think it is just as certain that the delivering up to be
crucified, also spoken of, is that last and final act in
f De Sacrificio Paschali, v.9. Vide also Mishna ii. 168. 2. & Matt.
xxvi. 1.2. h Cf, Origen, Operum iii. 891. A—E. or Comm. in Matt. Series 75.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 155
the trial of our Lord, when Pilate made him over to
the hands of his executioners. This act both St. Mat-
thew and St. Mark, with an exact accordance to the
words of the prediction, express alike by παρέδωκεν ἵνα
σταυρωθῆ. The betrayal by Judas, though the first
step in the whole proceeding, was no delivering up to
be crucified ; nor is ever spoken of as such, but merely
as a delivering up into the hands of sinners: it was
not even, at least in the expectation of the betrayer
himself, a delivering up to be put to death at all;
otherwise he would not have been surprised at the
event, nor have repented when he saw that Jesus was
condemned.
When we consider, therefore, that our Lord couples
these two things, the taking place of the Passover and
his own delivering up to be crucified, as simultaneous ;
then if either was to happen at the distance of two
days afterwards, so we may presume was the other
likewise. Now it is certain that this was the case with
one of them, his being delivered up. Conversely also,
if either was to happen on the Friday, two days after,
the prediction of either, two days before, must have
been pronounced on the Wednesday. The matter of fact
shews that our Lord’s crucifixion was to happen on
Friday ; his own prediction that the Passover was to
happen two days from the Wednesday: both together
shew that each was to happen at the same time with
the other.
Fifthly, the strictness with which, at this period of
their history, and indeed at every period before, when
the Law possessed its due force, the Jews observed the
sabbath, must be among the strongest presumptive dis-
proofs, amounting to a moral impossibility, that any
one of the numerous particulars, connected with the
h Ch. xxvii. 26. xv. 15.
156 Dissertation Forty-first.
apprehension, the examination, the judgment, and the
execution of our Lord, could take place on that day.
It is well known that for a time they would not defend
their lives on the sabbath day, nor afterwards, except
in case of an attack’. On more than one occasion the
capture of Jerusalem was mainly due to this single
cause; and the folly οἵ" the Jews, in that respect, as it
was considered by the Gentiles, appeared most unac-
countable, and exposed them to constant sarcasm and
reproach**, Both the arrival and the expiration of
the sabbatic rest were formally notified to the people
by the sound of a trumpet; that they might know
* Yet in the time of Josephus,
such was the effect produced by
the dispersion of the Jews, and
such their success in gaining over
proselytes, that the observance
of the sabbath, even among the
Gentiles, was universal. Οὐδ᾽
ἔστιν οὐ πόλις Ἑλλήνων οὐδητισοῦν,
οὐδὲ βάρβαρος, οὐδὲ ἕν ἔθνος, ἔνθα
μὴ τὸ τῆς ἑβδομάδος, ἣν ἀργοῦμεν
ἡμεῖς, τὸ ἔθος οὐ διαπεφοίτηκεϊ!. ΟΥ̓.
Philo ii. 137. 38. De Mose ii: τίς
yap τὴν ἱερὰν ἐκείνην ἑβδόμην οὐκ ἐκ-
τετίμηκεν, K, τ. λ. Seneca, also,
(apud Augustinum, De Civitate
Dei, vi. 11. Operum vii. 160. F.
G:) Cum interim usque eo sce-
leratissime gentis consuetudo
convaluit, ut per omnes jam ter-
ras recepta sit: victi victoribus
leges dederunt. Hence these
allusions to the sabbath in
Tibullus and Ovid: Aut ego sum
causatus aves, aut omina dira, |
Saturni aut sacram me tenuisse
diem: Tibullus, i. iii. 17. Nec
te pretereat Veneri ploratus
1 Mace. ii. 32—41. ix. 43. 44.
Adonis ; | Cultaque Judzo se-
ptima sacra Syro: Ovid, De arte
Amandi, i. 75. Quaque die re-
deunt, rebus minus apta geren-
dis, | Culta Palestino septima
festa Syro: Ibid. 415. Nec plu-
vias vites ; nec te peregrina mo-
rentur | Sabbata; nec damnis
Allia nota suis: Remedia Amo-
ris, 219.
Vide also Horace, Sermonum
i. ix. 69. Persius, v. 179, 180.
If we may believe Seneca,
even that peculiar article of
Jewish strictness, the not light-
ing a fire on the sabbath day,
was come into vogue at Rome:
Accenderealiquem lucernam sab-
bathis prohibeamus. Epistole,
95. §. 47. In like manner, Me-
leager of Gadara, a neighbour of
the Jews, and well acquainted
with their usages ; εἰ δέ σε σαβ-
βατικὸς κατέχει πόθος, ov μέγα
θαῦμα: | ἔστι καὶ ἐν ψυχροῖς σάβ-
βασι θερμὸς "Epos. Anthologia,
1. ἐῶ: ΣΦ ΊΩΝ
Ant. Jud. xii. vi. 2. Bell. i. vii. 3. ii. xvi. 4.
p- 484. 1b. xxi. 8. iv. ii.3. Ant. xiii. i.3. Ib. xii. 4. xiv. iv. 2. xviii. ix. 2.6. Vita, 32.
k Ant. Jud. xii. i. 1.
Contra Apionem, i. 22. 1193.
Juvenal, vi. 158, 159. xiv.
mi Plutarch, Operum vi. 646, 647. De Superstitione. Dio Cass. xxxvii. 16.
Contra Apionem, ii. 39.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 157
when to suspend and when to resume their ordinary
employments™. The catalogue of works regarded as
servile, and forbidden to be performed on the sabbath,
would amount to fifty or sixty; and the spirit of the
prohibition in almost every instance would justify us
in adding many more to the account”. Philo, De mi-
gratione Abrahami, enumerates several, such as, πυρεν-
αὐζειν, 7 γεωπονεῖν, ἢ ἀχθοφορεῖν, 7 ἐγκαλεῖν, ἢ δικάζειν,
ἢ παρακαταθήκας ἀπαιτεῖν, ἢ δάνεια ἀναπράττειν, ἢ τὰ ἄλλα
ποιεῖν, ὅσα κὰν τοῖς μὴ ἑορτώδεσι καιροῖς ἐφεῖται ῬῸ In like
manner Origen ; of ἐκ περιτομῆς. . . οἴονται ἐπὶ τοῦ σχή-
ματος, οὗ av καταληφθῆ τις ἐν TH ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ σαββάτου,
μένειν μέχρις ἑσπέρας. And again, διόπερ εἰς ἀπεραντο-
λογίαν of τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων διδάσκαλοι ἐληλύθασι, φάσκοντες
Bacrayua μὲν εἶναι τὸ τοιόνδε ὑπόδημα, οὐ μὴν Kal TO
τοιόνδε καὶ τὸ ἥλους ἔχον σανδάλιον, οὐ μὴν καὶ τὸ ἀνή-
λωτον᾽ καὶ τὸ οὑτωσὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ὥμου φερόμενον, οὐ μὴν καὶ
ἐπὶ τῶν δύο ὥμων *,
The people, who could consider such forbearances as
these to be points of conscience upon the sabbath, were
not likely to be parties in that profanation of its sanctity,
which every circumstance in our Lord’s passion must
otherwise have produced. Now if our Lord kept his
Passover at the usual time, on the night after the four-
teenth of Nisan, he was apprehended, tried, and cruci-
fied, on the fifteenth : and the fifteenth, being the first
* Bardesanes Syrus: ἀλλὰ καὶ κτίσαι οἶκον, οὐ καταλῦσαι, οὐκ ép-
δ᾽. τ “ ς \ , o x
δι ἡμερῶν ἑπτὰ πάντες ὅπου ἂν
5 a
ὦσιν, apyovow ἐκ παντὸς ἔργου, καὶ
», A
οὔτε ὁδεύουσιν, οὔτε πυρὶ χρῶνται,
y+ > 7 if , > ral >
οὔτε ἀναγκάζει ἡ γένεσις ᾿Ιουδαῖον οὐ
m Bell. iv. ix. 12.
imprudenter admissis, vi. 8. Annott.
1. 34—37.
et Festis Diebus.
γάσασθαι, οὐ πωλῆσαι, οὐκ ἀγοράσαι,
ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ σαββάτου. Euse-
bius, Evangelica Preparatio, vi.
10. 279. C.
n Vide Mishna, ii. 29, 2, &c. Maimonides, De Noxiis
© Exod. xxxv. 3.
Compare also ii. 168. 1. 29. De Mose, iii: 282. 1. 45. De Septenario
4 Operum i. 176. De Principiis, lib. iv. 17.
P Operum i. 450.
Vide also
Mishna, ii. 23, &c. and Hieronymus, Epistola ad Algasiam, iv. Pars ἴδ, 207.
ad principium.
158 Dissertation Forty-first.
of the seven days τών ἀζύμων, as well as the twenty-
first, which was the last, by express appointment was
an extraordinary sabbath ; possessing, if possible, when-
soever it might fall, greater holiness, and certainly not
less, than the ordinary. Even the Mishna makes no
other difference between the two kinds of sabbath than
this; viz. that the people might dress provisions on the
one, not on the other. Non est differentia inter diem
festum et diem sabbathi nisi in edulibus tantum’.
Those, therefore, who should contend that the ex-
traordinary or special sabbaths possessed a less degree
of estimation than the ordinary, would obviously beg
the question; and contend for that which they could
never prove: and those who should maintain that, for
the sake of effecting their purpose against our Saviour,
the Sanhedrim determined to waive even the sanctity
of the sabbath itself, would be guilty of the same pre-
carious assumption; gratuitously charging Scribes and
Pharisees with a piece of profaneness of which even
Scribes and Pharisees at this time were incapable.
Or though this should be conceded with respect to
our Lord, why, at the same juncture and on the same
occasion, it may yet be demanded, were two common ma-
lefactors, in whose case there was clearly nothing more
than ordinary, put to death along with him? What
urgent necessity or special reason made these, as well
as our Saviour, to be executed on a sabbath? It ap-
pears to me that the crucifixion of the two thieves
along with Christ, besides its subserviency to the ful-
filment of prophecy, which was the final end proposed
by Providence in permitting it; proves that the feast
was just at hand, but not yet come. They had not
been executed before it, and they could not be executed
during it: the case’ of St. Peter, in the twelfth chapter
r ii, 297. 2. 389. 5-
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. .Ὡ1δθ
of the Acts, is a clear proof that, while the great legal
solemnities were going on, no.criminal nor prisoner, for
whatever offence, or howsoever obnoxious to the people
themselves, was wont to be put to.death. These ma-
lefactors were, in all probability,,companions and. ac-
complices of Barabbas, who also is called a ληστὴς, and
whose execution had certainly been suspended, for
some reason or other, long enough to give the people
an opportunity of demanding, in the exercise of their
usual privilege, that he should be set at liberty. Their
crucifixion might always have been intended for this
day ; or the necessity of putting Jesus to death on this
day furnished an occasion for carrying into effect
their sentence also, at the same time and place with
his.
The piety of some of our Lord’s disciples would not
allow them to prepare the spices for his embalment on
the sabbath: would the same motive have allowed
Nicodemus and Joseph to take down his body from
the cross—to handle it—to lift it up—to carry it
about—to embalm it as well as the time would permit
—to deposit it in the sepulchre—to roll away, and to
roll to, the stone at the mouth of the cave—all which
were opera servilia, and unquestionably forbidden on
the sabbath? The Jews of the time had obtained a
concession from. the Roman. government, extending
the sanctity of the sabbath to the three hours of the
Parasceue before it 8, so far at least as not to be com-
pelled to attend to any civil business from the begin-
ning of that time to the first hour of the ensuing
week*. It was a regard to the holiness of the sabbath,
* The continuance of the Parasceve itself, among the
same kind of observance of the Jews of his day, is attested by
s Ant. Jud. xvi. vi. 2.
160 Dissertation Forty-first.
which made the Sanhedrim request of Pilate that the
deaths of the crucified parties might be accelerated :
a request which, it is obvious, must have coincided as
nearly as possible with the nznth hour, or the begin-
ning of the Parasceue itself: and that this was no un-
usual custom, on the eve of great solemnities, is attest-
ed by Philo, adversus Flaccum': ἤδη τινὰς οἶδα τῶν ἀνε-
σκολοπισμένων, μελλούσης ἐνίστασθαι τοιαύτης ἐκεχειρίας,
καθαιρεθέντας, καὶ τοῖς συγγενέσιν ἐπὶ τῷ ταφῆς ἀξιωθῆναι,
It is not likely
then, that they would have suffered those persons to
be executed on the sabbath, whose bodies they would
not allow to continue hanging upon the cross on the
sabbath. Nor do I think that the Divine Providence
would permit our Saviour to be crucified on the sab-
bath, though it might ordain that he should expire
and be buried critically before the sabbath; that so
his body might vest in the grave during the sab-
bath.
Sixthly, the sabbath which followed the day of the
crucifixion, and which there is no doubt was the or-
dinary seventh day of the week, is called a great day”:
The day of that sabbath was a great day: for which
peculiar greatness, distinct from the sanctity of the
ordinary sabbath, there is no mode of accounting satis-
factorily, but one: an extraordinary and an ordinary
4 a ΄“ ; ο ,
καὶ τυχεῖν τῶν νενομισμένων, ἀποδοθέντας.
Chrysostom, Operum iii. 161.
A. B. In illud, Siesurierit, &c.
3: οὐκ αἰσχύνῃ Iovdaious, οὐδὲ ἐρυ-
θριᾷς, οἱ μετὰ τοσαύτης ἀκριβείας τὸ
σάββατον φυλάττουσι, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς
ἑσπέρας αὐτῆς πάσης ἐργασίας ἀφί-
στανται; Kav ἴδωσι τὸν ἥλιον πρὸς
δυσμὰς ἐπειγόμενον ἐν τῇ τῆς πα-
ρασκευῆς ἡμέρᾳ, καὶ συμβόλαια δια-
κόπτουσι καὶ πράσεις διατέμνουσι.
t Operum ii. 520. 1. 17—20.
κἂν πριάμενός τις παρ᾽ αὐτῶν mpd
τῆς ἑσπέρας, ἐν ἑσπέρᾳ τὴν τιμὴν
ἔλθῃ κομίζων, οὐκ ἀνέχονται λαβεῖν.
kK, τ λ. The same thing ap-
pears by implication in the Gos-
pel of Nicodemus, cap. xv. (Au-
ctarium Codicis Apocryphi, page
gi.) where Joseph of Arimathea
alludes to his imprisonment on
the Parasceue, περὶ ὥραν δεκάτην.
u John xix. 31.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 161
sabbath, the fifteenth of Nisan and the seventh day of
the week, coincided together ; and being each of them
a sabbath, produced by this coincidence a double sab-
bath, a sabbath of double sanctity, solemnized by pe-
culiar offerings ’, both those of the ordinary sabbath,
in themselves twice as costly as the offerings on any
other day of the week ¥, and those appointed for the
first of the days of unleavened bread ; on the morrow
after which too, the first-fruits of barley-harvest were to
be consecrated in the wave-sheaf, and the computation
of the fifty days until the next feast, the feast of Pen-
tecost, was also to begin. This was enough to render
that sabbath-day an figh day. Any other explanation
of this highness, especially that which supposes that
the ordinary sabbath, whensoever it fell out, during a
festal week was necessarily an high day ; unless that
day was either the fifteenth or the twenty-first of Nisan
in the seven days of the Azyma, or the fifteenth or the
twenty-second of Tisri in the octave of the Scenopegia;
would be precarious, and destitute of support from the
requisite matter of fact.
But seventhly, the strongest argument that, if our
Saviour celebrated any Passover upon this occasion, he
celebrated it out of course, is deducible from the neces-
sity of fulfilling, in two most important respects, the
_ legal equity; which could not otherwise be fulfilled.
And this argument, though in my opinion it is suffi-
cient of itself to decide the present controversy, com-
mentators, both those who maintain and those who
impugn the supposition at issue, have by a strange
fatality attended to the least of any.
The entire system of types, and with the system of
types the whole doctrine of the correspondency be-
tween the Jewish and the Christian dispensations
v Numbers xxviii. 19—23. w Ibid. 3—10. Ant. Jud. iii. x. 1.
VOL. III. M
162 Dissertation Forty-first.
respectively, must fall to the ground, if the sacrifice
of the Jewish Passover is not acknowledged to have
been designed for a type and an emblem of the sacri-
fice of the death of Christ. There could be no such
thing as a type in the ancient dispensation, if this in
particular was none; there could be no rite, ceremony,
or institution, in the Mosaic or Levitical economy,
which bore any the least relation to Christ as the end
of the Law, if this in particular bore none. No Evan-
gelist—no Apostle—no orthodox Christian divine, ei-
ther in ancient or in modern times—ever yet doubted
of the truth of this relation; and St. Paul individually
has asserted it in plain terms*: Καὶ γὰρ TO ΠΑΣΧΑ
ἡμῶν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐτύθη ΧΡΙΣΤῸΣ *.
Now if the sacrifice of the Jewish Passover was thus
typical of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, then the
circumstances of ¢zme and place become of paramount
importance to the sacrifice of the death of Christ, be-
cause they were of paramount importance to the sacri-
fice of the Jewish Passover. This sacrifice was limited
from the first, in point of ézme, to one day in the whole
year, the fourteenth of Abib or Nisan; and in point
of place, to that particular quarter, out of all possible
situations, which God should select to fix his name
there’: which quarter, before the building of the
temple, might be variable, and according to Maimon-
ides *, was either Gilgal, or Shiloh, or Nob, or Gibeah,
or Jerusalem; in all which places the tabernacle was
successively erected: but after the building of the
temple became permanently fixed to Jerusalem ἃ.
κε Τηρεῖν ἄζυμα, καὶ ποιεῖν τὸ ἐκώλυσεν ἐσθίειν ἄζυμα : Julianus,
πάσχα οὐ δυνάμεθα φασίν" ὑπὲρ Ἢ; apud Cyrillum, 354. A. lib. x.
μῶν yap ἅπαξ ἐτύθη Χριστός" εἶτα
x 1 Cor. v. 7. y Deut. xii. 5—14. xvi. 2. 5,6. Josh. ix. 27. z De
Edificio Templi, i. 2. a Cf. Josh. v. το. xviii.1. 1 Sam. i. 3: vii. 2. XXi. I.
xxii. 19. 2 Sam. vi. 3.12. 1 Kings iii.4. xi. 32. 1 Chron. xvi. 39. Xxi. 29.
Time of the celebration of the lust Supper. 163
This being the case, a sacrifice, though performed at
Jerusalem, and with all the ceremonies of the Jewish
Passover (save and except the second Passover, which
yet was restricted to the same day in the second
month>) on any day but the fourteenth of Nisan,
would not have been the Jewish Passover: and a
sacrifice, though performed on the fourteenth of Nisan,
and with all the ceremonies of the Jewish Passover,
in any place but Jerusalem, would not have been the
Jewish Passover. So indispensable to the constitution
and integrity of the type, in this instance, were tome
and place in conjunction; and so little was either
capable of answering its purpose without the other.
Who, then, shall say that they were not equally indispen-
sable to the antitype? Had Christ suffered, though he
_ had suffered as a victim, on any day but the fourteenth of
Nisan, could he have suffered as the Jewish Passover ?
Had Christ suffered, though he had suffered as a vic-
tim, any where but at Jerusalem, could he have suf-
fered as the Jewish Passover? Had Christ suffered,
though he had suffered as a victim, on any day but the
fourteenth of Nisan, and at any place but Jerusalem,
in conjunction, could he have suffered as the Jewish
Passover * ?
The circumstances of the Passion, so far as they are
related, are all such as to coincide with this view of its
secret character, or typical designation. Not to men-
tion that most significant particular, expressly specified
* Justin Martyr, Dialogus, pars
i, 218. 15: οὐδαμοῦ θύεσθαι τὸ
πρόβατον τοῦ πάσχα ὁ Θεὸς συγχω-
ρεῖ, εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ τόπῳ ᾧ ἐπικέκληται τὸ
ὄνομα αὐτοῦ. Ibid. 228. τό: κἀ-
κεῖνος ἀπεκρίνατο, OV γνωρίζομεν
᾿ “» ς »” »” , ῬΑ
γὰρ ἔτι, ὡς ἔφης, οὔτε πρόβατον τοῦ
, 3 ld , \ a
πάσχα ἀλλαχόσε θύειν δυνατὸν, οὔτε
τοὺς τῇ νηστείᾳ κελευσθέντας προσ--
φέρεσθαι χιμάρους, οὔτε τὰς Gd.
λας ἁπλῶς ἁπάσας προσφοράς.
b Numb, ix. 6—13.
M 2
, 164 Dissertation Forty-jirst.
by St. John to shew the fulfilment of a well-known
condition to the integrity of the Paschal victim’, A
bone of him shall not be broken—the place where our
Lord suffered was unquestionably Jerusalem ; that is,
one of the two essential requisites to the sacrifice of
the Passover, propriety of place, was visibly true of his
death: and if he suffered on the fourteenth of Nisan,
as St. John clearly implies, the other, propriety of time,
was so too. But the analogy goes further than this. At
the ninth hour of the day when he suffered our Lord
expired; and in his expiration, that is in the separa-
tion of his soul from his body, in the rendering up his
life to God, not in his previous attachment to, or sus-
pension from the cross, must the article of his sacrifice
properly be made to consist. At the ninth hour, on
the proper day, Josephus informed τι8 the sacrifices
of the Jewish Passover began to be offered, continu-
ing to be offered until the eleventh: ἐνστάσης ἑορτῆς,
πάσχα καλεῖται, καθ᾽ ἣν θύουσι μὲν ἀπὸ ἐννάτης ὥρας, μέχρι
ἑνδεκάτης.
The ninth hour, then, according to the usage of the
Jews, which is necessarily the best interpreter of the
written precepts of their Law, was understood to be
the time prescribed for the purpose, in the terms, Be-
tween the evenings; and very apposite to this conclu-
sion is the following passage from the Paschal Homi-
lies ascribed to St. Chrysostom “ὃ: καὶ νόμου κελεύοντος
πρὸς ἑσπέραν, Kal ava μέσον τῶν ἑσπερινῶν, TO πρόβατον
σφάττεσθαι, καὶ ἡμέραν καὶ ὧραν τῆς σφαγῆς ἐπιτηρεῖ ὁ
Σωτήρ᾽ ἡμέραν μὲν τὴν παρασκευήν .... ὥραν δὲ, ἐννάτην"
καὶ περὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ἐννάτην ἐπὶ σταυροῦ ἀποπνεῖ. πρὸς ἐσπέ-
ραν μὲν "γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑβδόμης ὥρας εἶναί φασι, μετὰ τὴν
ἕκτην" τὸ δὲ ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν ἑσπερινῶν, εἰ ἀπὸ ἑβδόμης ApEn,
e John xix. 36. Exod. xii. 46. Numb. ix.12. Ps. xxxiv. 20. 4 Bell,
vi. ix. 3. e Operum viii. Spuria, 281. E. in Pascha vii. 4.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 165
TO κέντρον τῆς ἐννάτης τετελεσμένον ἐστίν" ἐν ἣ καὶ οἱ σοφοὶ
τῶν ‘EBpaiwy ἱστοροῦσι τὸ πρόβατον θύεσθαι ".
It is observable too, that the same sacrifice of our
Saviour answered almost as exactly to the daily sacri-
fice of the fourteenth of Nisan. The times of morning
and of evening sacrifice in general, including the times
of offering incense, of trimming the lamps, and of re-
sorting to the temple for the purpose of prayer, are
attested by Philo and by Josephus, as follows: zpwi
yap τὰ ἡμίση τῶν λεχθέντων, καὶ τὰ ἕτερα ἑσπέρας δειλινῆς
ἐκέλευσεν ὄντως ἱερουργεῖν ὁ νόμος----Καθ᾽ ἑκάστην μὲν οὖν
ἡμέραν δύο ἀμνοὺς ἀνάγειν διείρηται: τὸν μὲν ἅμα τῆ ἕῳ, τὸν
δὲ δείλης ἑσπέρας ... δὲς δὲ καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἐπιθυμιᾶται...
εἴσω τοῦ καταπετάσματος. ἀνίσχοντος ἡλίου καὶ δυομένου.
πρό τε τῆς ἑωθινῆς θυσίας καὶ μετὰ τὴν ἑσπερινήν ".. Ἔκ δὲ
τοῦ δημοσίου ἀναλώματος νόμος ἐστὶν ἄρνα καθ᾽ ἑκάστην
ἡμέραν σφάττεσθαι τών αὐτοετῶν. ἀρχομένης τε ἡμέρας καὶ
ληγούσης ᾿.---Αλλὰ δὲς τῆς ἡμέρας, πρωΐ τε καὶ περὶ ἐννά-
τὴν ὧραν, ἱερουργούντων ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ ----Δὶς δὲ τῆς ἡμέ-
ρας: πρίν τε ἀνασχεῖν τὸν ἥλιον καὶ πρὸς δυσμαῖς. θυμιᾷν
ἐχρῆν, ἔλαιόν τε ἁγνίσαντας φυλάσσειν εἰς τοὺς λύχνους].
For the same things we may consult Maimonides
De Sacrificiis Jugibus, cap. i. passim. According to his
authority, it was considered evening as soon as the
shadows began visibly to lengthen; that is, about half
past twelve at noon: and the evening sacrifice, begin-
ning at half past two, was generally over at half past
three. The morning sacrifice also, though commonly
begun before the sun was risen, might yet not be com-
pleted before the fourth hour of the day™. Our Sa-
f Vide also Maimonides, De Sacrificiis Jugibus, i. 3. Annott. & Philo
Operum i. 497.1. 29—31. Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres. h [hid. ii.
230. 1.5—19. De Animalibus Sacrificio Idoneis. i Ant. Jud. iii. x. 1,
k xiv. iv. 3. 1 iii. viii. 3. Vide also iv. viii. 12. Exod. xxix. 38, 39. xxx.
7, 8. Lev. xxiv. 2—4. Numb. xxviii. 3—8. Three of the branches of the
candlestick were kept burning all day—and the remaining four also during the
night. Ant. Jud. iii. viii. 3. m Vide Mishna, i. 13. 4.
M 3
~ 166 Dissertation Forty-first.
viour, therefore, who was attached to the cross at the
third hour, might answer even to that.
But the same authority informs us that, on the Pass-
over day, the usual evening service was antedated, so
as to be over before the ninth hour when the Paschal
service was to begin. Si vespera Paschalis, says the
Mishna®, incideret in sabbathum (which would be the
case when the fourteenth of Nisan coincided with the
Friday) mactabatur (sacrificium juge) sexta et media ;
et offerebatur septima et media; et deinde Pascha. At
this particular time, then, the evening sacrifice was
completed an hour sooner than usual, beginning soon
after the sixth hour, and being over before the ninth;
wherein also we may perceive a remarkable coincidence.
The miraculous darkness which commenced about the
sixth hour, and continued until the ninth, on the day
of the crucifixion, would continue during the whole of
the daily evening service in the temple; and for ought
we know, it might have a special relation to it: it
might be intended to shew that, while the great sacrifice
was accomplished or accomplishing on the cross, the
temple and the temple service were obscured for a time,
and ready to be superseded for ever.
Again, as the Paschal sacrifice was a lively type of
the death of Christ, so was the offering of the wave-
sheaf of his resurrection; and in allusion to the former
as St. Paul styles him our Passover, so in allusion to the
latter he calls him the first-fruits of them that slept°.
To the fulfilment of the legal equity, then, it was just
as necessary that the time of the resurrection should
coincide with the time of the presentation of the first-
fruits, as that the time of the Passion should do so
with the time of the Passover. That presentation was
n ii. 150. 5. Cf, Maimonides, De Sacrificiis Jugibus, i. 5. 0 3 Cor. xv. 20,
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 167
fixed to the hour of πρωΐ on the morning of the second
day of the Azyma, that is, of the sixteenth of Nisan ;
which if Christ suffered on the fourteenth of Nisan was
actually the time of his rising again. For if he suffered
the day before the sabbath, and rose again the day
after it—if the Friday when he suffered was the four-
teenth, the Sunday when he rose again was the six-
teenth: and as to the hour when he rose, according to
St. Mark it was the prescribed hour, the hour of πρωΐ
itself: ἀναστὰς δὲ, says he, πρωΐ» *. So exactly, on this
one supposition that our Lord suffered on the Jewish
Passover day, does every circumstance in the legal
symbol, both as concerns his death and as concerns his
resurrection, harmonize with the symbolized verity ;
and so ill, per contra, on any other. For if Christ
kept the Jewish Passover on the fourteenth—he must
have suffered on the fifteeenth; he must have lain in
* 'The ancient commentators it
is true, say that the actual time
of the resurrection is nowhere .
specified in the Gospels; and
therefore they connected πρωΐ in
this passage, not with ἀναστὰς, but
with ἐφάνη. Theophylact, i. 263.
C. in loc.: ᾿Αναστὰς δὲ δ᾽ Ἰησοῦς" év-
ταῦθα στίξον' εἶτα εἰπὲ, pwt πρώτῃ
σαββάτου ἐφάνη Μαρίᾳ τῇ Μαγδα-
ληνῇ" οὐγὰρ ἀνέστη πρωΐ: τίς γὰρ οἶδε
πότε ἀνέστη; See also Eusebius,
Questiones ad Marinum, i. (SS.
Dep. Vat. Coll. i. 63. A): τὸ γὰρ,
᾿Αναστὰς δὲ πρωὶ τῇ μιᾷ τοῦ σαββά-
του, κατὰ τὸν Μάρκον, μετὰ διαστο-
λῆς ἀναγνωσόμεθα" καὶ μετὰ τὸ ᾽Αν-
αστὰς δὲ, ὑποστίξομεν. Vide Sui-
das in πρωΐ, who has the same
gloss. This expedient seemed
necessary to reconcile St. Mark’s
πρωὶ with St. Matthew's ὀψὲ σαβ..
Barev. The same view of recon-
ciling St. Mark’s account of the
appearances of our Lord after
the resurrection with that of the
other Evangelists, probably gave
occasion to the omission in many
copies of his Gospel of the con-
cluding portion of it, from xvi.
g. to the end. See the same
Questio, 61. D. 62. B. and Hie-
ronymus, Operum iv. pars 1. 172.
ad medium, Hedibie.
There is another instance of
the same arbitrary kind of punc-
tuation, to save an imaginary
difficulty, Luke xxiii. 43. Theo-
phylact, i. 487 B: ἄλλοι δὲ ἐκβιά-
ζονται τὸ ῥῆμα, στίζοντες εἰς TO σή-
μερον, ἵν᾿ ἢ τὸ λεγόμενον τοιοῦτον"
᾿Αμὴν λέγω σοι σήμερον εἶτα τὸ,
Mer’ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῇ παραδείσῳ, ἐπι-
φέροντες.
Ρ Ch. xvi. 9.
Μ 4
. 168 Dissertation Forty-first.
the grave all the sixteenth; and he could not have
risen again until the seventeenth: in which case not
one of the above circumstances could have any thing
to do with his Passion.
The judgment of the primitive church upon these
points is decidedly expressed in the following passages.
To yap ὀπτώμενον πρόβατον, σχηματιζόμενον ὁμοίως TH
᾿ σχήματι τοῦ σταυροῦ ὀπτᾶται" εἷς γὰρ ὄρθιος ὀβελίσκος δια-
περονᾶται ἀπὸ τῶν κατωτάτω μερῶν μέχρι τῆς κεφαλῆς, καὶ
Ω
εἷς πάλιν κατὰ τὸ μετάφρενον, ᾧ προσαρτῶνται καὶ αἱ χεῖρες
τοῦ προβάτου----ἸΚαὶ ὅτι ἐν ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ πάσχα συνελάβετε av-
τὸν, καὶ ὁμοίως ἐν τῷ πάσχα ἐσταυρώσατε, “γέγραπται Ἁ----
Et non est numerum dicere in quibus a Moyse ostenditur
Filius Dei: cujus et diem passionis non ignoravit; sed
figuratim prznuntiavit eum, Pascha nominans: et in
eadem ipsa, que ante tantum temporis a Moyse preedica-
ta est, passus est Dominus, adimplens Pascha '—Que
passio .. perfecta est ..temporibus pasche . . die prima
azymorum, quo agnum ut occiderent ad vesperam a Moy-
se fuerat preeceptum. itaque omnis synagoga filiorum Is-
rael eum interfecit,dicentes ad Pilatum—ef que sequun-
turS—Tois μὲν οὖν παρεληλυθόσιν ἔτεσι τὸ θυόμενον πρὸς
Ἰουδαίων ἤσθιεν ἑορτάζων ὁ Κύριος πάσχα ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐκήρυξεν,
αὐτὸς ὧν τὸ πάσχα... . αὐτίκα ἐδίδαξε μὲν τοὺς μαθητὰς τοῦ
τύπου τὸ μυστήριον τῇ (γ΄. ἐν ἣ καὶ πυνθάνονται αὐτοῦ" Ποῦ
θέλεις ἑτοιμάσωμέν σοι τὸ πάσχα φαγεῖν ; ταύτῃ οὖν TH
ἡμέρᾳ καὶ ὁ ἁγιασμὸς τῶν ἀζύμων, καὶ ἡ προετοιμασία τῆς ἕορ-
Tis, ἐγίνετο... . πέπονθε δὲ TH ἐπιούση ὁ Σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, αὐτὸς
ὧν τὸ πάσχα, καλλιερευθεὶς ὑπὸ ᾿Ιουδαίων. And again ;
ταύτη τῶν ἡμερῶν TH ἀκριβείᾳ καὶ αἱ γραφαὶ πᾶσαι συμ-
φωνοῦσι, καὶ τὰ εὐαγγέλια συνῳδά. ἐπιμαρτυρεῖ δὲ καὶ ἡ ἀν-
ἄστασις" Th “γοῦν τρίτη ἀνέστη ἡμέρᾳ, ἥτις ἣν πρώτη (ita
q Justin Martyr, Dialogus, 218.]. 26—219. 1.1: 374.}. 19—22. Γ Jreneus,
Operum 309. 1. 20. Lib. iv. cap. 23. s Tertullian, Operum ii. 300. Ad-
versus Judzos, 8.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 169,
legendum) τῶν ἑβδομάδων τοῦ θερισμοῦ, ἐν ἣ καὶ TO δράγμα
> a a ‘ ε ’ t Ἥ δ΄ 1 RPE. . ‘
ἐνομοθετεῖτο προσενεγκεῖν Tov tepea'— Ti 10. τὸ ἀληθινὸν
A ’ , ε , € “ 4
τοῦ Κυρίου πάσχα, ἡ θυσία ἡ μεγαλη .... usque ad καὶ
ὁ ταφεὶς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ TH τοῦ πάσχα, ἐπιτεθέντος τῷ μνήματι
τοῦ λίθου υ.--ῶι καιρῷ ἔπασχεν ὁ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἔφαγε τὸ
κατὰ νόμον πάσχα" οὗτος γὰρ ἣν τὸ πάσχα, τὸ προκεκηρυ-
μένον, καὶ τὸ τελειούμενον TH ὡρισμένη ἡμέρα. And again ;
ὁ πάλαι προειπὼν ὅτι Οὐκέτι φάγομαι τὸ πάσχα, εἰκότως
τὸ μὲν δεῖπνον ἐδείπνησεν πρὸ τοῦ πάσχα" τὸ δὲ πάσχα οὐκ
᾿ ἔφαγεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔπαθεν. οὐδὲ “γὰρ καιρὸς ἣν τῆς βρώσεως
αὐτοῦ.
The testimony of St. John, as specified above, taken
in its simple and obvious historical sense, as we there
observed, ought to be considered decisive; since in a case
of this kind the authority of the last Evangelist, writ-
ing with an equal knowledge of the truth and of what
his predecessors had said, should upon every principle
be admitted not as contradictory to, but as merely ex-
planatory of their’s. It must be acknowledged too that,
in his detail of the same supper, no such expression
any where occurs as would suggest the inference that
our Lord was celebrating a Passover. This attention
to precision resembles the precaution of a writer, who
knew that the language of those before him on the same
subject had not been sufficiently explicit; the best
t Clemens Alexandrinus, ii. 1017. Apud Fragmenta. u Apollinarius, Hie-
rapolitanus Episcopus, Apud Chronicon Paschale, 14 1. 6—14. v Hippolytus
Portuensis, ibid. 13. l. 5—13. Vide also, Ignatius Ad Trallianos, ix. Justin Mar-
tyr, Apologia Prima 98.1. 27. Polycrates, Rel. Sacre i. 371. Tertullianus, Adv.
Mare. iv. 40. Operum i. 357: v. 7. Ibid. 399: Adv. Jud. to. ii. 320. Origen,
iii. 401—403. In Joh. tom. xxviii. 20, 21. Cyprian, Operum rto. and Epp. 156.
Petrus Alexandrinus, Rel. Sacre, iii. 343. Victorinus, ibid. 236. 237. Lactantius,
De Ver. Sap.iv. 26.395. 396. Eusebius, ap. SS. Dep. i. 169 B.—170.C. Epiphanius,
i. 421. A.B.Photii Bibliotheca, Tit. 115. 116. Theophylact, i. 741. D. E. in Joh.
xviii. Epiphanius i. 448. Alogi. xxvi. xxvii. has a singular statement, viz. that
our Lord celebrated his Passover, and was apprehended, on the evening of the
third day of the week, though he is still supposed to have suffered on the sixth.
The anticipation of the Passover he endeavours to account for, by shewing that
the Jews might be two days wrong in their reckoning of the fourteenth of the
moon. The other difficulty he does not explain, viz. what account is to be given
of the Thursday morning and night between the apprehension and the death.
- 170 Dissertation Forty-first.
apology for which I apprehend to be this; viz. that
the connection between the Jewish Passover and the
Christian sacrifice, and consequently the necessity that
Christ should suffer then and there, when and where
the Passover was to be celebrated, appeared to their
minds so close and so indispensable that, in whatever
terms they might have spoken of the previous supper,
no one who, like them, was habitually impressed with
the conviction of this truth would mistake it for the
regular Passover, and not consider it merely an antici-
pation of it, produced and justified by the special rea-
sons of the case.
Besides which, it ought always to be remembered
that the /ast Jewish Passover was the jirst Christian
supper; it was not more a Passover than an Eucharist :
and to convert the Legal into the Evangelical ceremony
was doubtless one great cause of that anxious desire to
celebrate the Passover for that time with his disciples,
before he suffered, which our Lord expressed”. Now
the Christian supper, as an institution expressly and
formally commemorative of the death of Christ, if it
was established at this time was proleptically esta-
blished ; for the death of Christ was not yet transact-
ed. And the circumstance that it was so instituted is
among the other arguments both that the Passover in
general, out of which ceremony it arose, was typical of
the death of Christ in general, and that this Passover
in particular, at which it was proleptically instituted,
was proleptically celebrated also.
I shall conclude, therefore, by observing that St.
Matthew’s, τῇ δὲ πρώτη τῶν ἀζύμων X—St. Mark’s, τῇ
πρώτη ἡμέρᾳ τῶν ἀζύμων Y—St. Luke’s, ἦλθε δὲ ἡ ἡμέρα
τῶν ἀζύμων, ἐν ἣ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ πάσχα ; all which are
intended to designate the day when the Apostles came
w Luke xxii, 15. x Matt. xxvi. 17. y Mark xiv. 12. Z Luke xxii. 7.
Time of the celebration of the last Supper. 17]
to our Lord to inquire about preparing the Passover ;
understood on the principle laid down by Maimonides’,
that the proper beginning of any feast-day was reck-
oned from the night which preceded it, may all be
intended to designate the night of the thirteenth of
Nisan, the beginning of the Jewish fourteenth*. The
whole of this νυχθήμερον, from sunset on Thursday to
sunset on Friday, was considered and might be called
the jirst day of unleavened bread. Josephus himself
makes the Paschal octave an octave of ἄζυμα, reckoning
the fourteenth of Nisan as the first of the number.
And it might be truly so reckoned; for the putting
away of all leaven, and of every thing leavened, began
with the evening of the thirteenth ἢ +.
We have but to suppose that the disciples came with
their inquiry at sunset on Thursday, and were sent at
that time accordingly; and the assertion would be
strictly correct. The circumstance that, on entering
the city, they were to meet a man returning home
with a pitcher of water, is a presumptive proof that
they entered it in the evening, at one of the times
when water was wont to be fetched. The room too,
which they were to find ready ἐστρωμένον, must have
been set out for that evening’s repast; which would
consequently be for supper.
* Apollinarius of Laodicea
(SS. Dep. Vaticana Coll. i.
188. D): ἄρχεται yap 6 σαββατι-
σμὸς ᾿Ιουδαίοις, καὶ πᾶσα ἑορτὴ νόμι-
μος, ἀπὸ ἐσπέρας.
Augustin, ii. 80. Ὦ. Epp.
xxxvi: ὃ. 50. Sed Matthzeus
Evangelista quintam sabbati di-
cit fuisse primam diem azymo-
rum, qula 6118 vespera sequente
futura erat coena paschalis, qua
ccena incipiebat azymum et ovis
ἃ De Sacris Solemnibus, ii. 5.
immolatio manducari.
+ Suidas, ζύμη" ὅτι λόγος ἔχει
ὡς ἀπὸ ς΄. ὥρας τῆς ιδ΄. τοῦ μηνὸς
ἡμέρας, σάλπιγγος φωνούσης, πᾶς
ἄρτος ζυμωτὸς, εἴ τις τοῖς “Ἑβραίοις
ὑπελείπετο, πυρὶ καιόμενος ἠφανίζετο.
So likewise Theodore Metochita,
Historia Romana, 34. But this
gloss is founded on the literal
construction of St. John’s state-
ment, ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα
ὥρα δὲ ὡσεὶ ἕκτη.
b Mishna ii. 134. 1.
- 172 Dissertation Forty-jirst.
I prefer this mode of construing these phrases because
it applies to each of the three cases alike; and because, by
this means, if the Passover was actually got ready on the
Jewish fourteenth of Nisan, though not at the legi-
timate time, which was the end rather than the be-
ginning of that day, still it would be as nearly regular,
and as close to the proper time, as the nature of the
case would permit. The ordinary supper time, as we
saw from Josephus, was probably as late as the first
or second hour of the night; and with a view to such
a repast as the Passover we may take it for granted it
would be: for the Passover was always to be killed
on the fourteenth and eaten on the fifteenth: in which
case the actual business of eating it could not begin
until after sunset on that day at least. ;
Yet St. Luke’s expressions in particular may be gene-
rally understood to mean that the first day τῶν ἀζύμων
was come, when the night before it was arrived; and
ἐν ἣ ἔδει θύεσθαι TO πάσχα may be referred to that day
when it should arrive. St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s
might be defended in like manner on the principle
stated elsewhere®, that πρώτη is equivalent to προτέρᾳ.
The Greek interpreters understood it in that sense;
and therefore considered the exchange of terms no
difficulty’. Theophylact’s comment upon St. Matthew,
in loco, is this®: πρώτην τῶν ἀζύμων τὴν πρὸ τῶν ἀζύμων
φησὶν ἡμέραν" οἷον, τί λέγω ; τῆ παρασκευῆ, ἑσπέρας, ἔμελ-
λον ἐκεῖνοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα" καὶ αὕτη ἐκαλεῖτο τῶν ἀζύ-
μων. ὁ "γοῦν Κύριος πέμπει τοὺς μαθητὰς τῇ πέμπτη, ἣν
ὀνομάζει ὁ Εὐὐωγγελιστὴς πρώτην τῶν ἀζύμων, ὡς πρὸ τῆς
παρασκευῆς οὖσαν, καθ᾽ ἣν παρασκευὴν, τῆ ἑσπέρᾳ, ἤσθιον
τὰ ἄζυμα.
c Dissertation xiv. vol. i. 546—549. 4 Chrysostom, Operum vii. 773. B. in Matt.
Homilia81.1. © Operum i. 145. B. In Mattheum, xxvi: 248. A. In Marcum,
xiv: 465. E. In Lucam, xxii..
DISSERTATION XLII.
On the proceedings of the night of Thursday, and the
morning of Friday, in Passion-week.
THE best distribution which we can make of the
transactions of both these periods—the former of which
answers to the thirteenth of the Jewish Nisan and the
fourth of the Julian April, and the latter to the four-
teenth of the one and the fifth of the other—is first,
from the beginning of the celebration of the last supper
to the time of the apprehension of Jesus; secondly,
from the time of the apprehension of Jesus to the time
of his being brought before Pilate; thirdly, from the
time of his being brought before Pilate to the time of
his being led away to be crucified; fourthly, from the
time of his being led away to be crucified to the time
of his being taken down from the cross, and buried.
With regard to each of these divisions, as well as to
the residue of the Gospel accounts, though the diffi-
culties, which present themselves in the way of an Har-
mony, will be found to be neither few nor trifling, yet
the reduction of St. Matthew to an entire agreement
with St. Mark will be seen to be a much easier task,
than the reduction of St. Luke or of St. John to a
similar agreement with either of them, or with each
other.
These difficulties, however, will be sensibly miti-
gated, if not altogether removed, by the help of the
principle so often enforced already; which is to con-
sider the later Gospels as designedly supplementary to
the earlier ; a relation, of which the whole of this por-
tion of their narratives furnishes the clearest proofs,
174 Dissertation Forty-second.
and of which no part of the Gospel Harmony makes
the application either more justly or with more success.
The best mode of reconciling the respective accounts,
in a given instance, is consequently to regard them in
this mutual relation, and to insert the particulars, sup-
plied by a later, where there is reason to suspect the
existence of hiatuses or omissions in an earlier.
The first division is comprised by Matt. xxvi. 90--
56. Mark xiv. 17-52. Luke xxii. 14-53. John xiii
—xvill. 11. inclusively. The facts which it contains
are partly the circumstances of the supper previously
to the departure to the garden; and partly the cir-
cumstances posterior to that but prior to the appre-
hension of Jesus. The scene of the former was alto-
gether the upper chamber where the supper was cele-
brated; the scene of the latter was partly the way
from thence to mount Olivet, and partly the garden
upon the mount. The one, then, may be referred to
one period of time, viz. between the sitting down to
supper and the departure to the mount; the other
may be referred to another, between the time of the
departure to the mount and the time of the seizure of
Jesus.
The commencement of the Paschal supper, we may
reasonably suppose, would be the usual time of that
solemnity ; which, according to the appointment of the
Law, was the evening after the Passover had been
killed ; and, consequently, as we before observed, after
not before the beginning of the Jewish fifteenth of
Nisan. The time answerable to this in the present
instance would be after not before the beginning of the
Jewish fourteenth; a time which St. Luke expresses
in general by ὅτε ἐγένετο ἡ wpa, and St. Matthew as
well as St. Mark more explicitly by ὀψίας γενομένης.
And now, the celebration of the supper in the usual
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 175
- manner of the Passover having thus been begun; for
the better explanation of subsequent particulars some
account of the ceremonies, with which the Passover
was wont to be commemorated, might perhaps appear
to be requisite. But the use of any such account would
be merely to define certain leading points of time in
the economy of the supper from first to last; before or
after which the corresponding divisions of the narra-
tive might most conveniently be introduced. I con-
sider it, therefore, sufficient for my present purpose to
touch upon those general outlines only; referring such
as desire a more minute and detailed explanation of the
same things to the authors who have treated expressly
of this subject. There is good reason indeed to doubt
whether the Paschal ritual, as it is commonly de-
scribed in such books, is perfectly authentic, and to
be depended on. It is an obvious objection to its
truth or probability, that it makes of a very simple
ceremony one of the most formal and most compli-
cated imaginable. On this question, however, it is by
no means incumbent upon me to enter at present.
I. At this point of time, when our Saviour and his
twelve disciples were now met together, and the solem-
nity was ready to begin, we may introduce Luke xxii.
15, 16, peculiar to that account ; and consequently the
first clear proof of an omission in St. Matthew’s or St.
Mark’s. : .
II. Perhaps with no sensible interval after this, as
the Paschal supper began and ended with the intro-
duction of a cup of wine, the act, and the declaration
accompanying the act, at Luke xxii. 17, 18, might also
take place. This too is peculiar to his account ; and
therefore a proof of a second omission in St. Matthew
and St. Mark. Nor can this cup, and what was ‘con-
nected with its introduction, reception, and distribution
176 Dissertation Forty-second.
among the disciples, be confounded on any principle
with what is similarly related at verse 20, of another
cup; as the place of each in a common account, and
the absence of the article before the mention of the one,
and its presence before the mention of the other, are
sufficient to prove. This circumstance of distinction
shews the introduction, reception, and distribution of
that other cup to have been a very different thing from
the introduction, reception, and distribution of the for-
mer. The well-known Christian cup arose out of the
one, but not out of the other. St. Matthew and St.
Mark also mention such a cup; which may agree with
the second in St. Luke; but the first must still be pe-
culiar to him: and if a similar declaration concerning
the fruit of the vine accompanied both, St. Luke, who
had specified this in the former instance, might natu-
rally omit it in the latter.
III. Since it must be evident that the supper was
actually now begun, there is no point of time where
we can better introduce St. John’s account of the wash-
ing the disciples’ feet, than this; first, because the
act took place δείπνου -yevonévov—when the supper must
have been begun, though not necessarily when it was
over: secondly, because it took place in the course of
the supper; our Lord arose from table to perform it;
and having performed it he resumed his former posi-
tion; a position, which the Greek terms employed,
ἀναπεσὼν πάλιν, determine to be the position of a per-
son at meat. The act therefore was critically inter-
posed between the beginning and the end of the same
solemnity; the supper had been going on before it,
and continued to go on after it. Thirdly, the allusion
in verses 10. and 11, demonstrates that Judas was still
present, and one of those whose feet were washed.
But after the time implied at verse 30, he was not still
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 177
present: and that time, as we shall see hereafter, was
much prior to the conclusion of the supper. ,
The whole of this account, then, from John xiii. 1—
17, impressive and significant as it is, is clearly an epi-
sode, relating to a matter of fact between the two ex-
tremes of the Paschal solemnity ; and strictly indepen-
dent of them both: which is probably the true reason
why the former Evangelists omitted it. With the mo-
tive, the final end, or the circumstances of it, we have
nothing to do at present. It might evidently come
where we have placed it; and as our Lord began with
Peter, he probably ended with Judas, and took the rest
of the Apostles in their order between them.
IV. Upon the resumption of our Saviour’s place at
the table, the next thing, in the order of particulars,
might be the introduction and consumption of the Pas-
chal lamb; coincident with which, either during or
immediately after it, we may place the institution of
the breaking of the bread, the first part of the Chris-
tian sacrament. ‘The lamb in the Paschal, and the
bread in the Evangelical supper, were equally types
of the same body of Christ; nor could a fitter time
perhaps for the conversion of the Legal into the Chris-
tian symbol have been pitched upon, than the precise
moment when, the Legal purpose designed by the
former being now complete, the virtue of the Jewish ©
was thenceforward to cease, and that of the Christian
to begin.
Besides, it is evident that of the Paschal lamb Jesus
_ himself partook; but of the Christian symbol, which
was the bread, it does not appear that he did partake.
To judge from the account of each of the Evangelists,
He took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and distri-
buted it among his disciples; but it is not said that he
ate of it himself: nor in fact, consistently with the de-
VOL. 111. N
- 178 Dissertation Forty-second.
sign and import of the bread; which represented his
own body as broken for them, could he have eaten of
it along with them. 'The same thing is true of the
blessing, consecration, and distribution of the cup, signi-
ficant of the blood, as the bread was of the body of
Christ. He required οὐδ the disciples to drink of
that cup; but it does not appear that he drank of it
himself.
We may observe also, that in the mention of the bread
there is not in St. Mark or in St. Luke* such an use of
the Greek article as would imply that the reception, the
blessing, and the distribution of that substance, at this
time, were regular parts of the Paschal ceremony ; as
might be the case with the cup. Strictly rendered, their
language is, Jesus having taken bread, éprov—not, τὸν
aprov—which may even suggest the inference that the
bread which he used was leavened bread. For unlea-
vened bread was in the shape of cakes—but ἄρτος, in
its proper sense, is not a flat cake, but a round loaf of
bread. Hence, in the account of the temptation, there
was a propriety in Satan’s first address*; Command that
these stones become not cakes, but loaves of bread:
and there is a similar propriety at Luke xi. 11, in our |
Lord’s own words: Which of you, being a father, if
his son ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone? as
much as in what follows: If he ask him for an egg,
will he give him a scorpion? for an egg in shape -
* St. Matthew is an excep-
tion ; for he reads, λαβὼν ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς
TON ἄρτον, xxvi. 26: but this may
be explained without detriment
to the argument derivable from
the absence of the article in the
other two instances. Jesus is said
to have taken the bread, because
the bread so taken became from
that moment the. well-known
symbol of the Christian supper ;
considered in which light it could
not be spoken of without the
article. ..
a Matt. iv. 3. see also Luke iy. 3.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 179
somewhat resembles a scorpion, as a loaf somewhat re-
sembles a stone. The drift of all this is to imply that
the institution of the bread was something out of the
usual Paschal course; and such as might be posterior
to, and must be distinct from the process of the con-
sumption of the Paschal victim.
The institution of the Christian sacrament is altoge-
ther omitted by St. John ; and, for an obvious reason,
he could not be expected to record it. With regard to
St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, they all agree in
representing the institution of the bread as prior to that
of the cup; and they all agree in placing the institu-
tion of the bread during, not after the supper; the two
former expressly, in the words, ἐσθιόντων airév—the
latter by implication; where, speaking of the appoint-
ment of the cup as μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι, he virtually recog-
nises the ordinance of the bread as ἐν τῷ δειπνεῖν. Beyond
this there is some disagreement. St. Luke, confirmed
by St. Paul in the well-known passage, 1 Cor. xi. 25,
places the institution of the cup after the supper; and,
consequently, at a different time from the institution
of the bread, which was during it: St. Matthew and
St. Mark record them both in conjunction, and there-
fore, apparently at least, place them both at the same
time.
In order to explain this difference, we must look at
the final end proposed by these two Evangelists more
particularly, in their account of the proceedings within
the upper chamber: which end was manifestly this :
out of a great variety of circumstances or discourses,
which then occurred, to notice nothing distinctly ex-
cept what related directly to ¢wo points—the consum-
mation of the treachery of Judas—and the sacramental
ordinance. With regard to the first of these, they had
given an account of the original formation, and of the
N 2
180 Dissertation Forty-second.
first overt act in the execution, of his design: nothing,
then, remained but to relate the completion; which
the event proved was to ensue that same night, and
after that very supper. Now that Judas had fixed
upon this night, before the supper, does not appear ;
that Satan entered into his heart, in consequence of
something which happened at the supper, and urged
him to perpetrate his scheme that night, does appear.
The connection, therefore, between the circumstances
of the last supper and the design, the prosecution, and
the effect of the treachery of Judas, becomes decided ;
and as each of the Evangelists had given an account of
the two first of these things, it was but natural that
they should also specify the last.
Without the previous and significant allusion to his
approaching betrayal, and by such a means as the in-
strumental agency of this disciple, which made part of |
the history of the supper just before; their account of
our Lord’s ultimate apprehension in the garden, by a
band under the guidance of Judas, would have been
an inexplicable effect. A stranger to the Christian his-
tory would not have been prepared, then and there at
least, for any such effect: and this we may consider one
of the strongest proofs that St. Luke must have seen
St. Matthew and St. Mark, and purposely omitted what
had been specified by them; that he records, as well as
either of them, the seizure of Jesus, and the presence
of Judas at the head of the band, but says not a word
of the previous discovery of his treachery.
Nor was the allusion in question, even in St. Mat-
thew or in St. Mark, so altogether minute as to leave
no room for the supply of a very important particular
by St.John. From the comparison of their accounts
before and at the time of our Lord’s apprehension, re- _
spectively, it is evident that they have left to conjecture
μα αν. σέ τως ie
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 181
an essential step in the progress of events; the depar-
ture of Judas from the upper-chamber, where he was
present at the commencement of the supper, before
the setting out to the garden; whither he could not
possibly have accompanied the rest. This omission is
exactly supplied by St. John; who distinctly specifies
both when he went out, and why.
With regard to the second point, or to the sacra-
mental institution; that was the institution of one
integral ceremony, but with two significant parts.
Hence if the Evangelists desired to record the whole
as such, though each of the parts might have been
separately and individually appointed, they would re-
cord them both in conjunction. The example of St.
Luke proves the necessity of so doing. As giving an
account of the same entire ceremony, he connects to-
gether the respective institution of each of its parts; yet
_ gives at the same time a clear intimation that the time
of the one was, in reality, somewhat later than that of
the other: that the bread was ordained during the sup-
per, the use of the cup was prescribed after it.
It follows, then, that the history of the Christian
sacrament, considered as one whole made up of two
component parts, coinciding with the proper time of
the institution of either, must so far have antedated or
postponed the proper time of the institution of the
other: and yet, as an account of one and the same cere-
mony, to the perfection of which the part antedated
or postponed was as necessary and as essential as the
other, it could not in either case be regarded strictly
as an Anticipation, or a Trajection. This is the dis-
tinction which holds good in the several Evangelists,
with reference to the present question; and this is the
principle on which we may satisfactorily explain it.
St. Luke records the institution of the bread at its
N 3
182 Dissertation Forty-second.
proper time, and therefore, anticipates that of the cup:
St. Matthew and St. Mark record the institution of the
cup at its proper time, and, therefore, postpone that of
the bread. In either case this is done respectively
with the one purely for the sake of the other. If both
could not be recorded in their own time and place δῇ
once, (which in the nature of things was impossible,)
one must be recorded out of its place, though the other
might not; and if both were to be recorded together,
though the one might be regular where it stood, the
other would be so far irregular. As to which of the
two should be selected to give the law of narration to
_ the other, this would be indifferent: historical preci-
sion might require it to be the account of the bread—
the integrity of the whole ceremony might require it
to be that of the cup. The Sacrament began to be
instituted when the use of the former was prescribed ;
but it was not complete until the latter had been pre-
scribed also. St. Luke’s scrupulous exactness. deter-
mined him to pitch upon the former; the design of
St. Matthew and St. Mark, which was to place on re-
cord the institution of the ceremony as such, made
them prefer the latter. Yet St. Luke shews clearly
that the account of the consecration of the cup, which
he subjoins to the mention of that of the bread, is sub-
joined entirely as a parenthesis; and St. Matthew or
St. Mark by no means implies that the institution of
the bread immediately preceded, though it is related
just before the institution of the cup.
It will follow therefore, that the continuation of |
what was actually said or done along with the insti-
tution of the bread is found in St. Luke from xxii.
19. to 21, 22: xxii. 20. is entirely parenthetic. The ©
method of reconciling the several accounts of the terms —
of the institution will be exhibited in the Harmony
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 183
itself; resolving every semblance of discrepancy into
the mere omission of some things by one, which are
supplied by another.
At this point of time, then, that is, directly after
Luke xxii. 22, I think it right to introduce John xiii.
18, 19, 20. It is incredible how much these verses
gain by this arrangement in clearness, propriety, and
significancy; and the only objection to it is, that
they appear to follow, as part of a continuous dis-
course, on xiii. 17. But so does xiv. 1. on xiii. 38:
and yet much independent matter—one circumstance
whereof was the institution of the cup at least—must,
as we shall see by and by, have been interposed be-
tween them. The supplementary character of St.
John’s Gospel is, in fact, an answer to the whole ob-
jection. 7
V. St.John proceeds to subjoin—which is a confirm-
ation of the proposed arrangement—that, after saying
these things, viz. after verse 20, Jesus was troubled, or
distressed in spirit; evidently by a lively sense of the
perfidy and ingratitude of one of his own Apostles,
such as the preceding reflections could not but obtrude
upon him: and ¢estified, that is, bore witness to the ᾿
Suturity of his guilt, saying, ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν, λέγω ὑμῖν, ὅτι εἷς
ἐξ ὑμῶν παραδώσει με. Here then, his account coincides
critically, and in the use of the very same expressions,
with Matt. xxvi. 21. and Mark xiv. 18. The per-
plexity produced among the disciples, by this sudden
and open declaration, is next specified by all the Evan-
gelists, and carries forward the thread of the narrative
in a very natural order; though St. Luke, for the rea-
sons so often assigned, without descending into par-
ticulars, is content barely to notice the fact. St. John
does so descend; but only to supply an anecdote
N 4
184 Dissertation Forty-second.
omitted by St. Matthew and by St. Mark, yet inti-
mately connected with what they do record.
They had each specified the fact of one disciple’s
after another inquiring of Jesus, Is it I? but neither of
them the private conversation between St.John himself,
Simon Peter, and our Lord, relating to the recognition
of the traitor; perhaps for this very reason that it
was private, or confined to these three in particular.
Now the Roman custom, by which guests reclined at
meat upon distinct. couches, each containing three, or
at the utmost four * persons apiece, which the Jews
also had adopted; rendered it very possible for such a
conversation and such a recognition, confined to these
two disciples, apart from the observation of the rest, to
have taken place. It is probable that our Lord, with
St. John, reclined on the same couch, and at the upper
end or at the centre of the table, that being the post
of the master of an entertainment; while the rest of
the company reclined upon three or four other couches,
upon either hand of him, all down the table. Simon
Peter’s position in particular might be near the upper
end, if it was not even on the same couch as St.
Fe ΠΟΥ της Ergo duos : Unus erat tribus in secreta
ξ 35
post | Si libuit menses negle-
ctum adhibereclientem, | 7 ὁγέϊα
ne vacuo cessaret culcita lecto, |
Una simus, ait: Juvenal, v.15.
The Scholiast upon this passage
of Juvenal observes, Tres autem
lectuli erant in quibus discum-
bebant. Spe tribus lectis vi-
deas coenare gualernos: Horace,
Sermonum i. iv. 86.
Again, Tum in lecto quoque
videres | Stridere secreta divisos
aure susurros: Horace, Sermo-
num ii.vili.77. Propertius, iv.viii.
‘lectulus umbra: | Queris con-
cubitus? inter utramque fui.
Plutarch, viii. 448. Sympo-
siaca, i. 3: the most honourable
seat at table was Πέρσαις μὲν ὁ
μεσαίτατος, ἐφ᾽ ov κατακλίνεται ὁ
βασιλεύς" Ἕλλησι δὲ ὁ πρῶτος" Ῥω-
μαίοις δὲ ὁ τῆς μέσης κλίνης τελευ-
ταῖος, ὃν ὑπατικὸν προσαγορεύουσι.
Apollonius Tyan. i. 8.134. D:
κατακεῖσθαι δὲ αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐν ἕξυσ-
σιτίῳ μὲν, οὐ μὴν πρόκριτόν γε τὸν
βασιλέα: τοῦτο δὴ τὸ παρ᾽ Ἕλλησί
τε καὶ Ρωμαίοις πολλοῦ ἄξιον.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 185
John’s—above our Saviour, as the latter might be be-
low him : whence he might easily make to St. John that
signal which led to the inquiry in question. The accu-
racy of the Evangelist’s description is observable in
one apparently slight circumstance, which nevertheless
is graphically exact. The relative posture of those who
reclined on a common couch was such, that the head of
the lower was nearly on a par with the breast of the
higher up of the two*. Hence the observation of the
Evangelist, ἐπιπεσὼν δὲ ἐκεῖνος ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ----
which means his leaning back upon the breast of Jesus:
as would necessarily be the case, if he wished, while in
his preexisting situation, to ask him a question.
This private conversation, then, we may suppose
would take place after the questions recorded by St.
Matthew and St. Mark, as far as they go in conjunc-
tion, had been put and been answered. It is evident,
‘however, from the mention of the dish, which now
ensues, and which we may presume denotes the dish
of bitter herbs (or πικρίδες) prepared after a certain
manner by themsélves, and brought in when the eat-
ing of the lamb was over; that the solemnity was far
advanced; and, consequently, that the night was pro-
portionably advanced also: which accounts for the
observation, John xiii. 30. Upon the reception of the
sop, Satan, says the Evangelist, entered into Judas;
and I persuade myself that the words directly after
ascribed to our Lord—o ποιεῖς ποίησον rayrov—were
intended, and are to be understood, to be addressed to
Satan, then in possession of Judas; though they would
appear to the rest of the company to be addressed to
Judas.
In consequence of the same construction, as consi-
* Pliny, Epistotarum iv. xxii. 4: Veiento proximus, atque etiam
in sinu recumbebat,
RB hk Dissertation Fe orty-second.
dering himself addressed, and perhaps as applying, in
his own conscience, what had been said, to the fact of his
secret intentions, Judas himself might then put the ques-
tion, recorded solely by St. Matthew, verse 25, μήτι eyo
εἰμι, ‘PaBBi; followed by the answer, σὺ εἶπας. It is
possible also that he acted in putting it under the im-
mediate impulse of the Devil; since, without some
such impulse, we can scarcely suppose he would have
ventured to ask a question, which implied either a
doubt of our Saviour’s knowledge of his purpose, or a
bold defiance of it; a reckless indifference to the expo-
sure of his perfidy—or the like. But the truth may
be, that when he sat down to supper he had not made
up his mind to betray our Lord that night; and not
being aware of any such intention, as already con-
ceived, when he received the sop, he might put the
question accordingly. The agency of Satan, then,
must be sought for not so much in his being insti-
gated to put that question, as in his being determined
to consummate his purpose that night.
The departure of Judas followed with no delay on —
the reception of the sop; and if his departure, for the
reason assigned, created no surprise among the rest of
the disciples, two conclusions will be presumptively —
established by it; viz. that this supper was not a Pas-—
chal supper, and, whatsoever it was, that the supper
was almost over. On the Paschal night no member of ©
the Paschal sodalitium would have thought of leaving
the Paschal chamber before midnight at least ; or if he
eis 7 ὦ χὰ,
did quit it, his departure would be something out οὗ
course.
VI. After this, we may place without hesitation,
and in a consecutive order, John ΧΙ]. 30—the end; a
part of his Gospel which stands entirely by itself, and
which it would be in vain to endeavour to harmonize
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 187
with any portion of the rest. It is memorable, how-
ever, as containing an express prediction of the denials
of Peter; a prediction which, as arising naturally out
of the course and turn of the conversation, it would be
improper to consider an Anticipation: and if it is not
an Anticipation, but an actual part of the narrative
where it stands, it is a distinct and independent in-
stance of any such prophecy: yet as no such prophecy
has hitherto preceded, though similar predictions may
be hereafter repeated, it will be the first instance of
the kind.
VII. After John xiii. 38, there is clearly room for
the supposition of a pause in the continuity of his ac-
count; during which, if the Paschal ceremony was not
yet complete, it would still be going on; and in the.
course of which that dispute among the disciples, re-
specting their comparative greatness, and the conse-
quent rebuke passed upon it by our Lord, which begin
to be recorded Luke xxii. 24, may appositely be intro-
duced. The language of the reproof is such as can
leave no doubt that it was directed against some pre-
sent and some passing, and not some former instance
of the dispute in question ; and there are two allusions
in it, or subjoined shortly upon it, which tend to prove
that both these incidents were posterior first to the act
of washing the disciples’ feet, and secondly to the de-
parture of Judas from the supper chamber.
The former is contained in the words of verse 97:
eyo δέ εἰμι ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν ὡς ὁ διακονῶν--- ἢ truth and
propriety of which declaration, coupled with the recol-
lection of the late significant transaction, which was
eminently the act of one who served or ministered*,
* Behold, let thine hand- 1 Sam. xxv. 41.—Que tibi ju-
maid be a servant, to wash the cundo famularer serva labore, |
feet of the servants of my Lord: Candida permulcens liquidis ve-
188 Dissertation Forty-second.
would be self-evident: but not on any other principle:
for what menial or servile act, distinct from the part
ordinarily discharged at the Paschal ceremony by the
principal personage of the company, is our Saviour
seen or known to have performed besides this? The
latter is found in the words of verse 31: Σίμων, Σίμων,
ἰδοὺ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐξητήσατο ὑμᾶς, τοῦ σινιάσαι ὡς τὸν σῖτον Ὦ.
The force of the Greek middle is strikingly exempli-
fied in the use of this verb ἐξαιτεῖσθαι-----Ὑ 1 ἢ the sub-
joined examples will prove not to be employed instead
of the active ἐξαιτεῖν, except in the sense of begging so
as to obtain, or in the confident hope of obtaining f.
stigia lymphis, | Purpureave tu-
um consternens veste cubile.
Catullus, lxiv. 161.
Suetonius, Caius 26:
Modo
ad pedes stare succinctos linteo
passus est—Idem, Vitellius, 2
Pro maximo munere a Messalina
petiit, ut 5101 pedes preberet ex-
calceandos—Plutarch, De Virtu-
tibus Mulierum, Operum vii. 23,
24: ἑσπέρας δὲ πρὸς ἑκάστην ἀνὰ
μέρος βαδίζουσαι, διηκονοῦντο τοῖς
ἀλλήλων γονεῦσι καὶ ἀδελφοῖς, ἄχρι
τοῦ καὶ τοὺς πόδας ἀπονίζειν---- Ῥοτ.-
pelus, 73: καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν, ἐκ τούτου
περιέπων καὶ θεραπεύων ὅσα δεσπό-
τας δοῦλοι, μέχρι νίψεως ποδῶν
καὶ δείπνου παρασκευῆς, διετέλεσεν-----
Clemens Alexandrinus, i. 620. 4.
Strom. iv. 19: ἡ δὲ Κλεοβούλου
θυγάτηρ τοῦ σοφοῦ καὶ Λινδίων pov-
apxouvtos, τῶν ξένων τῶν πατρῴων
οὐκ ἠδεῖτο ἀπονίπτειν τοὺς πόδας ---
Heliodorus, A®thiopica, ii. 22:
καὶ ἡ μέν τις ἀπένιζε τὼ πόδε, Kal
τῆς κόνεως ἠλευθέρου τὰ ὑπὸ κνήμην,
κα, τ A. Cf. also the anecdote
recorded by Sozomen, E. H. i.
xi. 417. B. of Spyrido, bishop
of Trimythus, in Cyprus, in the
time of Constantine. Also, ii.
ii. 443. B. what is related of the |
empress Helene, mother of Con-
stantine, at Jerusalem. See like-
wise ν. Vi. 602. C.
* Cf. Clemens Alex. i. 597. 2.
Strom. iv. 9: where this text is
quoted thus: ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ
Κύριος, Ἐξητήσατο ὑμᾶς ὁ Σατανᾶς,
λέγει, σινιάσαι᾽ ἐγὼ δὲ παρῃτησάμην.
Τ Ἡμᾶς γε μὲν δὴ, ναῦν τ᾽, ἀκή-
purov σκάφος, | ἤτοι τις ἐξέκλεψεν,
ἢ ᾿ξητήσατο, | θεός τις, οὐκ ἄνθρω-
πος, οἴακος θιγών. Adschylus Α-
gam. 644--- τοὺς γὰρ κάτω σθένον--
τας ἐξῃτησάμην | τύμβου κυρῆσαι,
κεὶς χέρας μητρὸς πεσεῖν. Euripides,
Hecuba, 49—roodvde μοι παρά-
σχετ᾽ ἐξαιτουμένῃ. Hippolytus,
γο6----ἔγραψεν ἡ δύστηνος ἐξαιτου-
μένη. Ibid. 854—et πως τὰ πρόσθε
σφάλματ᾽ ἐξαιτούμενος. Androma-
che, 54—1) παρθενείαν πατρὸς ἐξῃ-
tnoato. ‘Troades, 975 —orei-
Xopev ἡμεῖς, Κάδμε, κἀξαιτώμεθα
ὑπέρ τε τούτου, K, τ. λ. Bac-
che, 341—mparov γὰρ τόδ᾽ ἐξαι- —
τήσομαι. Heraclide, 47.5---ἀλλ᾽ ἐν
βραχεῖ δὴ τήνδ᾽ ἔμ᾽ ἐξαιτεῖ χάριν.
Sophocles, CEdip. Col. 586. Cf.
1327 ---ἡμέας ἐξαιτέονται. Hero-
dotus, Calliope, 87--- δὲ μήτηρ.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 189
The meaning of the declaration, then, is not that
Satan had merely desired to have, but that he had
actually got possession of, the Apostles; they had been
given up to his desire; to be sifted as wheat. Now
the object of sifting wheat, universally, being to sepa-
rate the grain from the chaff*, this surrendering of the
Apostles to Satan for such a purpose, which is spoken
of as already past, and even though future was mani-
festly near at hand, was designed for the probation of
their faith and constancy; which of them should
continue firm, and which should prove a castaway:
which in short should be the wheat, and which the
chaff. A similar metaphor occurs, Amos ix. 9: I will
sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is
sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon
the earth. But it was not so with the Apostles: one
of them would be lost. The declaration, therefore,
accords best to the supposition of a time posterior
to the final apostasy of Judas; of whom Satan had
now got and would retain possession. It is memo-
rable however on another account; viz. as leading to
a second prediction of the denials of Peter; which
also results so naturally from the passing conversa-
tion, that it can on no principle be confounded with
the former.
VIII. After this, there is no reason why Luke xxii.
35-38 should not be supposed to follow consecutively,
until a period of time when the Paschal solemnity as
ἐξαιτησαμένη αὐτόν. Xenophon, jv Ἰουδαίοις, τὸ παρὰ τοῦ ἄρχοντος
Anab. i. 1. ὃ. 3—evyovras δὲ ὑμᾶς
ἐκ τῶν πόλεων ἐξῃτοῦντο. Lysias,
ee > ’ ‘ > :
ΧΙ. 97---ἐξητήσαντο δὲ κατ᾽ οἶκτον.
Jos. Bell. Jud. i. xxii. r—An-
λαῖον ἐξαιτούμενοι. Ant. xviii. ix.
> , bY > ‘ @ ΄“
η-ο-ἐξῃητήσατο δὲ αὐτοὺς ἵνα δῶσιν
> -“ of , > cal
αὐτῷ ὥραν προσεύξασθαι ἀδεῶς. Acta
Polycarpi, vi. 30.----ἔθος δὲ πάτριον
ἐξαιτεῖσθαι τοὺς κατακρίτους, ὥσπερ
Ἁ \ A > 4 A >
καὶ παρὰ Σαοὺλ ἐξητήσαντο τὸν Ἰω-
νάθαν. Theophylact, Operum i.
483. C. in Lucam, xxiii.
* Cf. Ecclesiasticus xxvii. 4 :
As when one sifteth with a sieve,
the refuse remaineth.
. 190 Dissertation Forty-second.
such was manifestly drawing to a close; the next event
which he specifies being the departure to the mount.
Here, then, I would place the introduction of the third
and probably the last Paschal cup; and with it the
institution of the remaining member of the Christian
sacrament. In this part of the first eucharistic ordi-
nance Judas would consequently not partake; though
he must have partaken of the former.
IX. The next ceremony might be the singing or re-
citation, either wholly or in part, of the usual thanks-
giving Psalms, called the great Hillel, or Psalm of
praise, and consisting of the eXV. cxvi. cxvii. and cxviii.
Psalms; which the rabbinical writers inform us were
not confined to the Passover, but wont to be used at
the other feasts also. Maimonides, indeed, supposes
them to be recited while the lamb was eaten: but
this must not be too strictly understood. I place the
Hillel here in obedience to the authority of St. Matthew
and of St. Mark; both of whom specify the singing of
some hymn, as the last circumstance before the whole
company went out. It is true that this hymn was not
necessarily the Hillel; and the singing of such an
hymn, previous to the departure from the chamber,
might have taken place with apparently an equal pro-
priety after John xvii. 26.
X. The Paschal celebrity being concluded, still our
Saviour and his eleven disciples might not immediately —
leave the supper chamber: and if they actually stayed
there some time longer, this interval cannot be other-
wise devoted than to the conversations, ending with
the prayer of Jesus, which are successively recorded in
the xiv. xv. xvi. and xvii. chapters of St. John. There
is internal evidence that the subject-matter of these
» De Sacrificio Paschali, viii. 14.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 191
chapters is a series of circumstances and discourses, all
of consecutive occurrence; omitted perhaps by the
other Evangelists because they came between the
close of the Paschal ceremony, and the departure to
the garden; and therefore, according to his practice,
supplied by St. John. It is manifest that, even so
early as the end of the fourteenth chapter, the time
was come when they must have been preparing to
leave the place where they were: ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν év-
τεῦθεν, though it may not amount to a command actu-
ally to set out, cannot imply less than that the time
for setting out was at hand. Nor is it improbable that
our Lord, who knew from the first all which was
coming upon him, and whose invisible eye had accom-
panied the movements of Judas ever since he went
out, would purposely delay his departure even after
the supper was over; in order so to time his arrival
in the garden, that the traitor might find him there.
XI. With the departure itself, when it actually took
place, a circumstance specified by ad/ the Evangelists,
we must date the commencement of the second sub-
division, laid down above. The time itself it may not
be possible exactly to determine. But if we consider
at what period in the evening Judas must have gone
out, viz. before the shops were shut in Jerusalem; and
at what period our Lord was apprehended, viz. before
every body had retired to rest; and also what is as-
serted by Maimonides’, that the eating of the Passover
was always finished before midnight: we may see rea-
son to conclude that it would be before midnight, ra-
ther than after it. And though the supper had not
been begun until the first or the second hour of the
night, still this would allow as many as four hours,
¢ De Sacris Temeratis, vi. 12. De Sacrificio Paschali, viii. 14.
. 192 Dissertation Forty-second.
or even five, for the transaction of the intermediate
events.
I assume, then, that our Lord set out for the mount
of Olives in the last hour of the second watch of the
night, between our eleven and twelve o'clock. The
period of the year was the vernal equinox, and the
day of the month about two days before the full of the
moon; in which case the moon would be now not very
far past her meridian, and the night would be enlight-
ened until a late hour towards the morning. The
suburbs of Jerusalem were full of gardens‘; and
Gethsemane, as the name implies (denoting the place
of the winepresses *) was one of these, or in the vici-
nity of one of these: and Gethsemane, according to
Jerome, was Ad radices montis Oliveti®, and conse-
quently to the east of Jerusalem: His feet shall stand
in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before
Jerusalem on the east‘: and, as we have seen from
Josephus, it was five or six stades remote from the
walls of the city, on the other side of the valley or
torrent of Cedron $—where, as Jerome also informs
us, a church was subsequently built.
This quarter was on the road to Bethany; and the
family of Lazarus might have possessions there. That
for some reason at least our Lord was accustomed to
resort thither is directly affirmed by St. Luke, who
says that he went there according to his wont; and
impliedly by St. John, who says that Judas also knew
the place. The house, where the supper had just been
celebrated, was probably situated in the eastern divi-
* Jerome iv. Pars 18. 129. αὐ vallis pinguissima, which is in
med.: renders Gethsemani, by fact its literal signification.
d Jos. Bell. Jud. v. iii. 2. vi. i. 1. e Operum ii. Pars i*. 451. De Situ et
Nominibus, f Zech. xiv. 4. g 2 Sam. xv. 23. 1 Kings ii. 37.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 193
sion of the city; for the messengers, sent to prepare
the supper, would enter it from the direction of Beth-
any, and may be presumed to have found the house
almost as soon as they entered it. In this case, the dis-
tance to the garden would be somewhat more than the
interval between the city walls and the mount of Olives,
that is, about half or three quarters of an English mile:
so that there was still time for the conversation re-
corded Matt. xxvi. 31-35. and Mark xiv. 27-31. to
come to pass by the way; a conversation, memorable
on two accounts; one, that now was delivered the pre-
diction on which so much stress is laid by St. Matthew
in Ais account of the resurrection, viz. that Jesus, after
his resurrection, should precede his disciples into Ga-
lilee; the other, that the turn of the conversation again
led to the prediction of the denials of Peter; and con-
sequently to the third and last instance of the kind.
The distinctness and independence of these several
predictions it is not possible, without running into the
grossest inconsistencies, and sapping the foundations
of historical testimony, to call into question. It is to
be observed, however, that St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s
account of such a prediction being reckoned as one and
the same, each of the Evangelists records only a single
instance out of the three; the fact of which number
we are, consequently, left to collect from the com-
parison and conjunction of each of the narratives. But
it is an instance, supplied in each case by matter pecu-
liar to the Gospel which has specified it. It is also to be
observed that the moral lesson, furnished by this most
impressive and instructive incident, is wonderfully
enhanced, if it appears, as it must now do, that the
number of times for which it was predicted that Peter
should deny his master; and the number of times for
which he protested, in the confidence of a genuine sin-
VOL. III. O
194 Dissertation Forty-second.
cerity, that he would rather die than deny him; and
the number of times for which, on being put to the
test so shortly after, he did deny him: were precisely
the same. Nor is it more extraordinary that on three
several occasions the futurity of these denials should have
been simply predicted, than that on three several occa-
sions, and much nearer in point of time to each other,
the fact of three such denials should actually have
taken place.
XII. The next event is the agony: of which St.
John, though he brings our Saviour to the garden be-
fore it, and makes him to be apprehended in the garden
after it, yet gives no account; and clearly because the
other Evangelists had given a full account. Yet Paley
has observed that in our Lord’s allusion to his cup, xviii.
11. there is, even in St. John, a tacit reference to the
thoughts and the expressions of the agony itself; such
as might naturally ensue on so recent an event. The
reconciliation of St. Matthew and of St. Mark, in their
relation of this transaction, may be easily effected, as
the Harmony will shew, down even to the /etter of the
narrative in each. I shall merely observe, that the con-
cluding sentence of our Lord’s address to his disciples,
καθεύδετε TO λοιπὸν, καὶ ἀναπαύεσθε, Which most com-
mentators have so inexplicably mistaken for ironical,
(and what could irony have to do with so solemn and
so serious an occasion as this, or with the frame of the
speaker’s mind at the time?) is to be interrogatively
understood, like each of the preceding addresses: Sleep
ye on still, and take ye your rest ? Are ye sleeping, even
for the little time which remains? It is enough; let it
suffice you to have slept thus long; the hour is come,
and the Son of man is delivered into the hands of
sinners. This sense of τὸ λοιπὸν is the most common
imaginable.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 195
With regard to St. Luke, it may well admit of a
question whether the supplementary character of his
Gospel is not here to be strictly taken into account.
. It is true that he records no part of the agony except
what plainly relates to the first trial, and the first
prayer; and so far his account may appear more suc-
cinct than that of St. Matthew or of St. Mark. But,
even in relation to this, he records certain particulars
distinctly from them, which shew that he had it in
view to supply their omissions here as well as else-
where ; viz. the appearance of the angel who strength-
ened Christ; and that most expressive token of the in-
tensity of the agony, the bloody sweat. But for the
sake of specifying these particulars, so characteristic
and so affecting, we know not that he would have no-
ticed at all, any more than St. John, an event circum-
stantially related as it was, by his predecessors.
Independently of these additions, his account, com-
pared with their’s, is studiedly concise. On the second
and the third repetition of the prayer in question, the
violence of our Lord’s emotion previously was sensibly
diminished ; and his mind was recovering its wonted
composure. These, therefore, he omits altogether.
And as to the rest, it seems to me that he proposed to
supply a further deficiency in St. Matthew and St.
Mark; viz. the account of what passed personally be--
tween Jesus and the EIGHT disciples, in contradistinc-
tion to what passed between him and the THREE;
before and after the agony, respectively. They had
sufficiently, or rather exclusively specified the latter ;
but had said nothing of the former.
Now it is evident from the testimony of St. John,
that as the agony took place in the garden, so before
the agony our Lord, and his eleven disciples, all en-
tered into the garden; and after the agony, that Jesus
02
196 Dissertation Forty-second.
at the head of, or apart from the same disciples, went
out from the garden, to meet the approaching band of
Judas. Hence, if all the eleven, béfore and after the
agony; were in the garden, though the three in par-
ticular might be nearer spectators of the scene, yet the
eight also must have been partially witnesses of it:
and though, before the agony, Jesus withdrew himself
with the three to some distance from the eight, yet,
after the agony, and before the arrival of the band of
Judas, he must have rejoined the eight. St. Luke’s
definition of the distance, ὡσεὶ λίθου βολήν----ἴο which
he withdrew himself from those whom he supposes
him afterwards to address, accords better to the case
of the eight, left by themselves at the entrance of the
garden, than to that of the three whom he took with
him further on into it: for, from these, according to
St. Mark, he went but a “tile way off before he be-
gan to pray; whereas λίθου βολὴ implies the distance
of a stone’s cast from a sling*; which could not be
properly called a little way off, and would be much
greater than could have permitted that clear view,
especially in the night-time, of his mental and his bodily —
distress, with which these three in particular were fa-
voured.
Jesus then, after addressing his last admonition to
these three, as recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark,
may be supposed to have gone on to the rest, left pro-
bably at the entrance of the garden: and if he found
them asleep also, it would not be more surprising than
the fact that he had found the three others, thrice succes-
sively, in the same situation before. Yet for their being
found asleep St. Luke has assigned a reason,which might
* Tantum aberat scopulis, quantum balearica torto
Funda potest plumbo medii transmittere celi.
Ovid, Metamorphoseon iv. 708.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 197
indeed apply to the three, but is specified solely of the
eight. They were asleep from grief and dejection of
spirit ; affections, which the course of events hitherto,
the many ominous declarations of their Master re-
specting himself and them, the ingratitude and perfidy
of Judas, by this time perhaps only too reasonably
suspected, the power and agency of evil spirits, now
permitted to molest and disturb them in some manner
more than usual; but above all, sympathy with their
Master, in the spectacle of mental and of corporeal
anguish, so recently exhibited, however imperfectly, to
their observation, were well calculated to have ex-
cited: to which we may add the natural effect of the
lateness of the hour itself.
As all this would take place without loss of time, it
might still be said with truth that Judas appeared, ἔτι
αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος : for instantaneous as this appearance
might be, it could not have come so critically in the
midst of our Lord’s last address to the three Apostles, as
not to allow him time to go forth, and to anticipate the
entrance of the band, before its intrusion into the gar-
den. We may conclude, then, this consideration of the
agony by observing that its duration was probably a
little more than ove hour. The first, and by far the
most intense, of its paroxysms seems to have occupied,
proportionably, the greatest part of the time; and the
duration of that, as we may infer from the words ad-
dressed to Peter on the first return, Simon, sleepest
thou? hast not thou been able to wake one hour’? was
nearly an hour. Both the others, we may presume,
would be transacted in half the same time; whence, if
our Lord arrived in the garden ‘a little before, or not
later than, midnight, the whole would be over soon
& Mark xiv. 37.
03
198 Dissertation Forty-second.
after one in the morning, or the first hour of the
third watch.
XIII. With regard to the subsequent events, the
supplementary character of St. John’s Gospel enables
us to arrange them as follows. First, upon the ap-
proach of the band, our Lord issued from the garden
for the purpose specified by that Evangelist; and those
particulars ensued, including the prostration of the
band, which are recorded John xviii. 3-9. The pro-
vision of lamps and torches, which is mentioned by
St. John alone, might be no excess of precaution even
in a moonlight night, especially two days before the
full; but due to various conceivable reasons, which it
is not necessary to specify.
Secondly, the supernatural impression produced,
both upon the band and on their conductor, by the
appearance and the address of Jesus, being now re-
moved; the accounts of the other Evangelists may come
in to fill up a perceptible hiatus in St. John’s. For it is
clear that at this moment, though he does not mention
the fact, our Lord must have been arrested, or some
attempt made to arrest him; if Simon Peter now drew
his sword, (a fact which he does mention,) and began
to offer resistance. At this point of time, then, the
preconcerted signal, by which Jesus was to be recog-
nised, might take place in Judas’ stepping up to and
kissing him; and if our Lord’s address to him, in con-
sequence of this act, is differently represented in St.
Matthew and in St. Luke, respectively, the difference
may be accounted for by supposing it to have been
really made up of both: ᾿Ιούδα, ἑταῖρε, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάρει:
φιλήματι Tov υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδως; The recog-
nition of Jesus would be followed directly by the
seizure of his person; and the seizure of his person
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 199
by the attempted resistance of Peter; whose posses-
sion of a μάχαιρα, or sword, is critically explained by
Luke xxii. 8. and 38: the owner of the other sword
being probably St. John.
The suppression of the name of Peter, in the three
former accounts, may be attributed to the circumstance
of his being alive when they were written; which would
be an argument that noneof these Gospels was later than
the eleventh of Nero, which was probably the time when
he suffered: and its mention by St.John we may attribute
to the circumstance of his being dead when St. John’s
Gospel was written ; a conclusion, which is suggested
also by John xxi. 19. The name of the wounded ser-
vant, likewise omitted by them, is similarly supplied
by him; but in return he omits, what they had men-
tioned, the fact of his immediate cure: a miracle, which
proved so strikingly the prudence and composure of
our Lord on this trying occasion. The rest of the
narrative of the present transaction; comprehending
what Jesus said to Peter and to the multitude, .before
the cure of Malchus, what to the members of the San-
hedrim, or their confidential officers, who conducted
the band, down to the time of the desertion and the
dispersion of all the Apostles, except Peter and John
who still followed him afar off: is easily to be recon-
ciled together, as the Harmony will shew. The last
fact in particular, as having been distinctly recorded
by St. Matthew and by St. Mark, and yet as not cre-
ditable to the disciples themselves, St. Luke, with a be-
coming regard to their honour, does not unnecessarily
repeat: and the anecdote, over and above all this, con-
cerning the young man whose seizure and escape are
next mentioned by St. Mark, and are peculiar to his
Gospel, we have considered and endeavoured to explain
O 4
200 Dissertation Forty-second.
elsewhere". And now the apprehension of our Lord
being complete, the subject-matter of the first division
expires here.
The second division extends from Matthew xxvi.
57—xxvii. 2, from Mark xiv. 53—xv. 1, from Luke
xxii. 54—xxili. 1, and from John xviii. 12—28, all in-
clusive. The difficulties, if there are any, which be-
long to it regard exclusively the order of the examina-
tions of Jesus, and the times of the denials of Peter.
To consider each of these questions in its turn.
The first thing done with our Lord, as we learn
from St. John, was to conduct him to the house of
Annas; partly, perhaps, because in proceeding to the
palace of the high priest, it might be necessary to pass
by the house of Annas: for that palace, being some-
where contiguous to the temple, was probably situated
in the northern division of the city ; whereas the mount
of Olives lay to the east*: partly because he was the
father-in-law of the high priest himself: and partly
and principally because he was also his vicar, the next
in dignity to him, and the vice-president of the San-
hedrim. In doing this, however, from whatsoever mo-
tive, it seems certain that the band acted of their own
accord, and not in obedience to any orders before
received: for, according to John xviii. 24, (a notice
parenthetically inserted, and to be taken in conjunction
* The exact site of the tem-
ple, according to Josephus’ ac-
count, Bell. v. iv. 3. and v. seems
to have been the north-eastern
angle of the city wall, standing
in that situation opposite to the
Psephine tower on the north-
west. The palace of the high
priest was most probably some-
where in the same division, be-
tween these two; though the
modern delineations of Jerusa-
lem exhibit it in a much different
situation ; viz. in the quarter
called Mount Sion, to the south-
west.
h Dissertation ii. Vol. i. go.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 201
with verse 13, in order to explain what follows from
verse 15—where the scene is evidently placed in the
palace of Caiaphas itself,) our Lord was directly con-
signed, still bound and without any examination, to
the high priest, as to the proper authority before whom
his trial was to take place. With the arrival at the
palace of the high priest, St. John’s account begins to
be so far joined by the rest; but the history of our
Lord’s examinations is still distinct in each: and if St.
Matthew’s and St. Mark’s be both reckoned an account
of one and the same examination, there are three such
examinations on record in all.
I. An examination before Caiaphas, and Caiaphas
alone, when Jesus was first brought in, and the as-
sembling of any part of the Sanhedrim besides had not
yet taken place; which will be peculiar to St. John:
a supposition by no means improbable; first, from the
hour when he would be brought in, which we shall
see by and by was not later than two in the morning
at the utmost: secondly, from the uncertainty respect-
ing the time of his apprehension which must have pre-
ceded ; in consequence of which the Sanhedrim, though
they might be got together either wholly or in part
after the event, could not have been ready assembled
at any particular hour, in the palace of the high priest,
expecting it: thirdly, from the demeanour of our
Lord himself; who answers the questions of the high
priest now, but declines to answer them on the next
occasion ; for that may justly imply that he knew him-
self not to be put formally on his trial now, as he
certainly was then: fourthly, from the nature of the
examination itself, which was purely preliminary, turn-
ing upon éwo points only, our Lord’s doctrine and_ his
disciples: or, as these topics were never alluded to again,
being designed for the gratification of the private cu-
202 3 Dissertation Forty-second.
riosity of the high priest himself: fifthly, from the
supplementary character of St. John’s Gospel through-
out, and especially in this part of his narrative, where
nothing is recorded in detail by him which had not
been passed over by the rest. It follows, therefore,
that the insult also, now offered to our Saviour, as re-
lated at verse 22, though it might be the first of its
kind, was yet a different incident from any thing like
it which transpired afterwards.
II. An examination, about one hour, as I shall shew
hereafter, if not somewhat more, later than the for-
mer, recorded by St Matthew and St. Mark; whose
account of it is in every circumstance the same. This
was an examination before the Sanhedrim; as might
be inferred even from the circumstance that it is the
only examination which these two Evangelists record,
before the delivery up of our Saviour to Pilate: for,
Our Law, say the Jews to the high priest Hyrcanus',
forbids even a malefactor to be put to death, who has
not been previously condemned by the Sanhedrim.
Some examination, then, of our Lord by the Sanhe-
‘drim, before his condemnation and much more his
execution, was necessarily to be expected: which ex-
amination, as far as regards St. Matthew or St. Mark,
must be either this present one, or none. It is strong-
ly implied by Mark xiv. 53, that the council had been
convoked and came together, posterior to the arrival of
Jesus; and the place in which they assembled was cer-
tainly the palace of the high priest, whither Jesus had
been first conducted. Nor is this at variance with Matt.
xxvi. 57: for though they were not actually collected
when our Lord first came in, the assertion would still
be true if they were got together before the ensuing
examination itself. The interval of an hour, or some-
i Jos. Ant. Jud. xiv. ix. 3.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 208
what more, would be abundantly sufficient for that
purpose.
Of this examination, if it was really followed by
another, no more, for an obvious reason, might be re-
corded by St. Luke than the fact of the injurious and
insulting usage, which was heaped upon our Lord at
its close. No such usage followed after the next; and
it was too important a part of our Lord’s humiliation,
and too essential to the fulfilment of prophecy, to be
lightly passed over. One article of these indignities
themselves, such as is specified Luke xxii. 64, is a cri-
tical proof that Jesus was now, and had been before,
formally put upon his trial. To have endured this
particular kind of affront, he must have heen bare-
headed ; and that to remove the covering of the head
from an accused person, when brought to trial, espe-
cially in cases of a more aggravated description, was a
practice among the Jews may be collected from Philo;
ἵν᾽ ἐπικρίνηται yeryumvomérvy TH κεφαλῇ, τὸ τῆς αἰδοῦς περι-
ηρημένη σύμβολον, ᾧ ταῖς εἰς ἅπαν ἀναιτίαις ἔθος χρῆσθαι κ᾿
III. An examination, also before the Sanhedrim, but
omitted by the two former Evangelists, and therefore
recorded by St. Luke; the fact of which I infer for
the following reasons.
Because even in St. Matthew and St. Mark there is
ground of presumption enough to authorize the belief of
it; for they each say that, πρωΐας “γενομένης, or ἐπὶ TO πρωΐ,
the whole council consulted together, expressly upon the
topic how they might put Jesus to death. Notwith-
standing then the result of the previous deliberation,
they were still at a loss about that point; and in order °
to remove this difficulty, they might call in our Lord
before them again.
Because this examination in St. Luke is affirmed to
k Operum ii. 309. l. 15—17. De Specialibus Legibus. Vide also Numb. v. 18.
204 Dissertation Forty-second.
have taken place ὡς ἐγένετο ἡμέρα ; which denotes the
same time of the morning as πρωΐας “γενομένης, or ἐπὶ TO
mpwt. It took place, then, after the examination on
the one hand, and aé the time of the consultation on
the other, spoken of in St. Matthew and in St. Mark
respectively. |
Because the former examination clearly took place
in the palace of the high priest, but this, as we may
infer from verse 66, in the usual council-chamber of the
Sanhedrim ; which, according to the rabbinical writers,
was not in the palace of the high priest, but in the
temple. In conclavi czsi lapidis consessus magnus
Israelis sedebat, ac etiam judicabat sacerdotes!. This
conclave was situated partim in sancto, and partim in
profano; that is, it stood upon the confines of the
priests’ court and of the men’s.. At the time of the
former examination, so early in the morning, the temple
would be shut up; but at the time of the latter, viz.
after the dawn of day, it would be open: and there is
reason to conclude from Matt. xxvii. 1. 5, that the very
consultation there spoken of was held in the temple.
Because by the use of the term ἀνήγαγον, prior to
this examination, St. Luke may be thought to imply
that this was a second instance of our Lord’s being
brought before the Sanhedrim.
Because he clearly makes ¢his examination a later
event than the injurious usage, which St. Matthew and
St. Mark both specified as the direct and immediate re-
sult of the former.
Because the circumstances of the two examinations
were materially different: in proof of which assertion
it is sufficient to mention first, that two distinct ques-
tions, designed to make our Lord criminate himself,
1 Mishna, v. 378. 3. iv. 255. 2. Vide also Maimonides, De Synedrio, et De
Apparatu Templi, v. 17.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 205
were now put; one, Art thou the Christ? the other,
Art thou the Son of God? which before were put both
at once: secondly, that they were put by αὐ the San-
hedrim now, but by the high priest alone before:
thirdly, that the answers returned by our Lord now
were not the same with those returned by him before.
Because St. Luke may be supposed to refer to the pre-
ceding examination, as recorded by St. Matthew and St.
Mark, at verse 71, where he alludes to the same want of
testimony, which had been the great difficulty before,
as continuing still: yet of this want of testimony, and
consequently of the meaning of the allusion couched
beneath those words, it would not be possible, from
the information which he supplies himself, even to
form an idea. The chief motive to a second examina-
tion by the Sanhedrim was therefore still this diffi-
culty; in order to remove which, they judged it most
expedient to make our Lord furnish matter of accusa-
tion against himself, by his answers to such questions
as, with that view, were purposely put unto him. <Ac-
cordingly, the degal charge, on which they subse-
quently denounced him to Pilate, and demanded his
death, the charge of blasphemy, was the very charge
so elicited in his professing himself the Son of God.
Not but that other reasons might cooperate to the
same effect; such as a fuller attendance of the Sanhe-
drim at this time than before, the satisfaction of every
remaining scruple, a determination to have positive
and irrefragable proof of what they considered our
Saviour’s guilt; but principally perhaps the inform-
ality of the season when the former examination had
been held; since, according to Maimonides ™, Judicia
neque noctu, neque sabbatho, peragere licitum erat—
Non inchoant judicia noctu: for this consideration
m De Jurejurando, vi. 7. Dithmari Annott.
206 Dissertation Forty-second.
alone might require a renewal of the trial in the morn-
ing, even though their minds had been satisfied with
the result of the examination during the night.
That they were scrupulously observant of the forms
of their law at least appears, first, from the pains
which they took to procure the /egal number of wit-
nesses", whose testimony, though false, might agree
together; and secondly, from their condemning our
Lord at last upon a legal charge, which required in-
stantaneous death, the charge of blasphemy ; and their
taking him immediately to Pilate, as to the executioner
of their sentence; which was ‘all that they could do.
The remarkable coincidence by which the Gospel of
St. John, in his account of the cleansing of the temple
at the first Passover, proleptically illustrates and con-
firms the truth of the material fact now alleged against
our Lord by these two witnesses, three years after it
happened ; and with so much of misrepresentation as,
while it justifies its being called a false witness, was
yet possible and probable at that distance of time sub-
sequently: has often been pointed out, and need not
now be insisted on. All which I shall say about it is,
that nothing can prove more distinctly the difference
of the cleansing in St. Matthew or St. Mark from this
in St. John, than the consideration that while each
relates the fact of the cleansing only three days before,
and the fact of the false allegation founded upon it,
three days afterward, they are totally silent upon the
matter of fact which gave occasion to the allegation
itself. No such matter of fact occurred at the time of
the cleansing which they record ; and, therefore, if any
such occurred at the time of the cleansing recorded by
St. John, that cleansing must have been totally dif-
ferent from their’s.
n Numb. xxxv. 30. Deut. xvii. 6. xix. 15.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 207
With regard to the times of the denials of Peter,
they synchronized with the first and the second of the
above examinations of our Lord; that is, the first de-
nial happened a little before the first examination, and
the third a little before the close of the second. The
second, therefore, came between the two.
For St. John informs us that when Jesus was first
conducted to the hall of the high priest, which must
have been from the house of Annas, Peter and himself
followed him thither; and the other Evangelists, so
far as regards the attendance of Peter, unanimously
confirm St.John. He informs us also that being per-
sonally known to the high priest, and consequently to
the keeper of his door, in this instance one of his
female servants; (nor was the practice of having female
doorkeepers unusual among the Jews, but on the con-
trary of great antiquity, μήτε τὴν θυρωρὸν ἐγρηγορυῖαν ὃ
being a statement of Josephus’ with reference to the
time of David ;) he spoke to her in behalf of Peter, who
had not yet ventured to come in; and so brought him
into the palace also. At this time, as each of the
accounts attests, it was early in the morning; and it
being likewise the spring-time of the year, the night,
always cold in Judza, was perhaps more so than
usual: and consequently a fire had been lighted in the
lower part of the hall to warm the parties present ;
down by which Peter sat with the rest, to observe, as
we are told, the event.
Hereupon, as we are informed by St. Matthew, St.
Mark, and St. Luke, (and it is by no means inconsist-
ent with the account of the same thing by St. John.)
the female who kept the door, and had recently let
him in, and whose suspicions of the fact had probably
been raised by the very circumstance of John’s speak-
o Ant. Jud, vii. ii. 1.
208 Dissertation Forty-second.
ing to her 7m his behalf, challenged him as a disciple
of Jesus*. It is implied by her words that she knew
John to be such a disciple; and, therefore, she would
conclude that one of Azs friends must be so too. Or
at least, as Peter was obviously a stranger, and did
not belong to the house, it was a natural inference that
he would not have ventured to come in, if he had not
been, in some way or other, connected with Jesus ;
who had been recently brought thither, and who was
still there.
As to any difference in the terms of her address to
him, this is of no moment in the harmony of the seve-
ral accounts. The same fact is implied substantially
under all its forms; and the simplicity of the Gospels,
like that of every inartificial and unrefined history
whatever, in all such instances as these, instead of in-
direct narration, proceeding from the historian himself,
prefers to convey the plainest matter of fact, relating
to any person’s conduct, in the shape of something said
directly by him: which must yet be considered equi-
valent to indirect narration. The first denial now took
place; and to judge from the course of circumstances,
as it took place so soon after the arrival in the hall, it
might be prior, but it could not be posterior, to the
first examination.
With regard to the second and the third denials, if
there is any difficulty, it arises out of the conciseness
of the several accounts. On each of these occasions,
more parties than one taxed Peter with his relation to
Jesus simultaneously; to whom however he made an-
swer, in general terms, at once.
After being challenged by the maiden, he withdrew
from the centre of the hall to the προαύλιον, where
* So Theophylact, i. 738. D. In Joh. xviii.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 209
however, as St. John implies, he would not be alto-
gether out of the reach of the fire. Here, according to
St. Mark the same maiden, whose proper station was
also the porch; .and according to St. Matthew another
maiden, most probably one of her companions; and
according to St. Luke and St.John others in general,
whose curiosity, or whose suspicions, might have been
excited by what had passed already; repeated the
challenge, and the second denial took place.
After this, and perhaps to avoid the vicinity of the
woman who had recognised him twice, and whom he
might leave at her post in the porch; or to support
the character of a stranger with so much the more
confidence; Peter must have returned to his former
station near the fire, and even mixed in the conversa-
tion passing around him; for which, as St. Luke
shews, there would be ample time; until some of the
company, remarking the peculiarity of his dialect which
was the Galilean, according to the united testimony of
the three Evangelists taxed him on that very account
with being a follower of the Galilean; and one of
them in particular, a kinsman of Maljchus, charged him,
according to St. John, with having seen him in the
garden. If this man had witnessed the violence ex-
perienced by his relation, and that at the hands of
Peter, his recognising him now was exceedingly natu-
ral and probable. To these general attacks Peter re-
turned the most positive and the most aggravated
denial of all: and now it was, that the look of Jesus,
who was still present at the upper end of the hall, turn-
ing about critically at this moment, and steadily fixing
his eyes upon Peter, recalled him to a pungent sense of
his misconduct; reviving the recollection of his Mas-
ter’s predictions, and overwhelming him with the con-
sciousness of his own fulfilment of them. There is no
VOL. IIT. Ρ
210 Dissertation Forty-second.
circumstance in our Lord’s examinations more im-
pressive than this, or by its moral beauty more calcu-
lated to illustrate the benignity of his own disposition,
and the instinctive force of conscience. We are in-
debted for it exclusively to St. Luke; and it shews
that Jesus’ second examination was now going on, and
to judge from what follows almost arrived at a close.
St. Mark, however, specifies in the liveliest manner the
effect produced upon Peter by the glance—éeriBarov
éxAate—he drew his mantle over his head, so should
the word be rendered *, (before or while doing which
he must immediately have gone out,) and wept.
The account of these denials, then, is clearly inter-
posed between the first and the second examination of
Jesus: the times of the denials will consequently be
the times of those examinations, or nearly so: and
these times are ascertained by the crowing of the cock.
Directly after the first, the cock crew for the first time,
and directly after the third, for the second. The se-
cond denial, too, followed sooner after the first, than
the third after the second; which we have seen was
otherwise a probable effect: for between the second
and the third, Luke xxii. 59, compared with Mark xiv.
70, shews that there was something less than one
hour ; which Luke xxii. 58. alone must prove could not
have been the case between the second and the first.
Now if John xiii. 38, Matt. xxvi. 34, 75, Luke xxii.
34, 61, be all compared with Mark xiv. 30, 72, it will
appear that whereas, in predicting these denials, our
Lord actually said, Before the cock crow twice, thou
* Yet that ἐπιβάλλω may bear tice, observed, &c. Cf. Marcus
the sense given it in the author- Antoninus, De Rebus Suis, x.
ized version, appears from He- 30: τούτῳ yap ἐπιβάλλων ταχέως
rodian, Vili. 9: ἐπέβαλόν τινες τῶν ἐπιλήσῃ τῆς ὀργῆς.
τεχνιτῶν, in the sense of took no-
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 211
shalt deny me thrice ; which the event also proves to
have been the case, but St. Mark only specifies accord-
ingly ; the other three say simply, Before the cock crow
thou shalt deny me thrice. It follows, therefore, that
they mean the second of the above cock-crowings, and
by the second, the period of the night ordinarily known
by the name of cock-crow ; for none else could be spe-
cified either as a limit of time under any circumstances,
or ἁπλῶς in this particular instance, but that. They
imply then that whensoever the three denials might
begin, they would be all over before the time of cock-
crow ἁπλῶς ; which was a definite time of the night.
The night being divided into four watches, of three
hours each, beginning at sunset in the evening and
ending at sunrise in the morning ; a fact which is too
notorious to require any proof; this time coincides
with the end of the third, and the beginning of the
fourth, watch of the night; or, about the time of the
vernal equinox, with three in the morning. Hence
the propriety of the following divisions of time in St.
Mark, xiii. 35: ὀψὲ, which stands for the close of the
first watch ; μεσονυκτίου, which stands for the close of
the second ; ἀλεκτοροφωνίας, which denotes the end of
the third; and zpwi, which is sunrise in the morning,
and therefore the end of the fourth. Speaking of the
habits of the domestic cock, Cum sole, says Pliny Ρ,
eunt cubitum, quartaque castrensi vigilia ad curas
laboremque revocant : which defines the time of cock-
crow very exactly.
Et jam quarta canit venturam buccina lucem ;
Ipsaque in Oceanum sidera lapsa cadunt.
Propertius, iv. iv. 63.
The same time was called περὶ ὄρθρον, and in reference
p H.N. x. 24.
PS
219 Dissertation Forty-second.
to the cock’s crowing about that time we meet with
such passages as these :
οἵ pe φίλοι προδιδοῦσι, καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλουσί τι δοῦναι
ἀνδρῶν φαινομένων" ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ αὐτομάτη
ς ’ >” ΠΝ , > ΕΣ
ἑσπερίη T ἔξειμι, καὶ ὀρθρίη αὖθις ἔσειμι,
ἦμος ἀλεκτρυόνων φθόγγος ἐγειρομένων.
Theognis, Poete Minores, i. 859.
ὁ δ᾽ ὄρθριος ἄλλον ἀλέκτωρ
κοκκύσδων νάρκαισιν ἀνιηραῖσι διδοίη.
Theocritus, Idyll. vii. 123.
vevpeba Kappes ἐς ὄρθρον, ἐπεί κα πρᾶτος ἀοιδὸς
ἐξ εὐνᾶς κελαδήσῃ, ἀνασχὼν εὔτριχα δειράν. Idyll. xviii. 56.
ὁπόταν μόνον ὄρθριον aon,
ἀναπηδῶσιν πάντες ἐπ᾽ ἔργον. Aristophanes, Aves, 488.
Besides this, however, there were two other cock-crow-
ings, one before it, the other after it; one or both of
which are alluded to in the following passages. It is
the second of the three, which is the ἀλεκτοροφωνία,
ἁπλῶς; and which must always be understood, unless
where any other is specially mentioned.
Thus in Babrius’ poetical version of the Fables of
At sop. |
ὁ δ᾽ ἐκ πεταύρου κλαγγὸν εἶπε βοήσας (lege βωστρήσας)
πόθεν μαθήσῃ πόσσον εἰς ἕω λείπει,
τὸν ὡρονόμον θύσας με---- Suidas, Πέταυρα P.
Cicero, De Divinatione, ii. 26: Qui quidem silentio noctis, ut ait
Ennius,
Favent faucibus russis cantu,
Plausuque premunt alas.
Quur etiam gallum, noctem explodentibus alis,
Auroram clara consuetum voce vocare,
Nenu queunt rapidei contra constare leones ?
| Lucretius, iv. 714.
Jamque pruinosos molitur Lucifer axes ;
Inque suum miseros excitat ales opus.
Ovid, Amorum i. vi. 65.
Nunc etiam somni pingues, nunc frigidus humor :
Et liquidum tenui gutture cantat avis. Ibid. i. xiii. 7.
P Vide Fabb. sopee, 369.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 213
Non vigil ales ibi cristati cantibus oris
Evocat Auroram. Ovid, Metamorphoseon xi. 597.
Nocte Dez Nocti cristatus ceditur ales,
Quod tepidum vigili provocat ore diem. Fasti, i. 455.
Jam dederat cantum lucis prenuntius ales,
Cum referunt juvenes in sua castra pedem. Ibid. ii. 767.
Hec ille, et si que miseri novistis amantes,
En! matutinis obstrepit alitibus. Propertius, 1. xvi. 45.
Tune queror in toto non sidere pallia lecto,
Lucis et auctores non dare carmen aves. Ibid. iv. iii. 31.
Nondum cristati rupere silentia galli,
Murmure jam szvo, verberibusque, tonas.
Martial, ix. 69. In Magistrum ludi.
Surgite, jam vendit pueris jentacula pistor ;
Cristateeque sonant undique lucis aves.
Ibid. xiv. 223.
Sub galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat.
Horace, Sermonum i. i. 10.
Quod tamen ad cantum galli facit ille secundi,
Proximus ante diem caupo sciet. Juvenal, Sat. ix. 107 *.
“Opvixes τρίτον ἄρτι τὸν ἔσχατον ὄρθρον ἄειδον.
΄ Theocritus, Idyll. xxiv. 63.
In allusion to these times of cock-crowing among
others, Censorinus divides the night as follows4: Tem-
pus, quod huic proximum est, vocatur de media nocte :
sequitur gallicinium, cum galli canere incipiunt: dein
conticinium, cum conticuerunt: tune ante lucem: et
sic diluculum, cum sole nondum orto jam lucet. In
like manner Macrobius': Deinde gallicintum; inde
conticinium ; cum et galli conticescunt, et homines
* Dr. Mead too has shewn than morning, or dawn of day.
that the voice of the bird alluded Vide Harmer, iv. 38, 39. ch. vii.
to, Ecclesiastes xii. 4, is cock- obs. exxv.
crow, as such, more probably
ᾳ De Die Natali, xxiv. r Saturnalia, i. 3.
p 3
214 Dissertation Forty-second.
etiam tum quiescunt: deinde diluculum...inde mane.
Servius, ad Aineidem, ii. 268: Sunt autem solide
noctis partes secundum Varronem hz: vespera, concu-
bium, intempesta nox, gallicinium, conticinium, lucifer.
diei, mane, ortus, meridies, occasus. de crepusculo ve-
ro, quod est dubia lux, . . . licet utrique tempori possit
jungi, usus tamen ut matutino jungamus obtinuit. Ad
Aneidem, iii. 587: Sane noctis septem tempora ponun-
tur: crepusculum, quod et vesper: fax, quo lumina
incenduntur: concubtum, quo nos quieti damus: 7-
tempesta, id est, media: gallicinium, quo galli cantant :
conticinium, post cantum gallorum silentium: aurora,
vel crepusculum matutinum, tempus quod ante solem
est *.
* These divisions of the night
are alluded to in a letter of
Marcus Aurelius Cesar, written
to Fronto, from the neighbour-
hood of Naples, and describing
the variableness of the tempera-
ture of that climate, in the
course of the same night: Jam
primum media nox tepida, Lau-
rentina, tum autem gallicinium
frigidulum, Lanuinum. jam con-
ticinium, atque matutinum, at-
que diluculum, usque ad solis
ortum, gelidum Adalgidum ma-
xime.—Frontonis Opera inedita,
Epp. ad Marcum Ces. lib. ii. 1.
p: 69.
Suidas, Κῆρυξ. ὁ ἀλεκτρύων"
τρίτον δὲ ade. Ammianus Mar-
cellinus, xxii. 14. 331: Casium
montem .. . unde secundis gal-
liciniis videtur primo solis exor-
tus. Gesta Petri,61. (PP. Aposto-
lici, 775. E.) ἄρτι δὲ περὶ τὰς Sev-
Tepaias τῶν ἀλεκτρυόνων δὰς ἀνα-
στὰς, K,7.A. Cf. also Clementina
Homilia 3%. 1. Ibid. 576. B.
Plutarch, Aratus, 7, 8: ὁ τὴν
ἑωθινὴν φυλακὴν παραδιδοὺς ἐφώ-
Seve κώδωνε. .. ἡ δὲ ὥρα κατήπει-
γεν, ἤδη φθεγγομένων ἀλεκτρυόνων,
καὶ ὅσον οὔπω τῶν ἐξ ἀγροῦ τι φέ-
pew εἰωθότων πρὸς ἀγορὰν ἐπερχο.--
μένων.. ἡμέρα μὲν ὑπέλαμπεν ἤδη.
Aristides, xxvi. 512. 1]. 4: ἀλε-
κτρυόνων δὲ δαὶ πλησίον ἦσαν...
ἅμα δὲ τῇ ἕῳ, κ',τ. A. Idem, xxvii.
535. l.14: καὶ περὶ ἀλεκτρυόνων μά--
λιστά πως φδὰς ἀνύσας εἰς Μύριναν
...kal δὴ ἑωσφόρος τε ὑπερεῖχε, καὶ
φῶς ἡμέρας ὑπέφαινεν----1}}] Mace.
V. 23: ἄρτι δὲ ἀλεκτρύων ἐκεκράγει
ὄρθριος... 24. τὴν πρωΐαν... 26.
οὔπω δὲ ἡλίου βολαὶ, κ', τ. A. Plu-
tarch, De Oraculorum Defectu,
Vil. 64.5: οὔτε ὁ Σοφοκλέους "Αδμη-
τος" ovpos δ᾽ ἀλέκτωρ αὐτὸν ἦγε
πρὸς μύλην : unless, indeed, ἀλέ-
κτὼρ is here, my husband: Al-
cestis being the speaker. Cf.
upon the same subject, Antho-
logia, 1. 22. Meleagri Ixxii: 37.
exxili. 7, 8: ii. 96. Antipatri
Thessalonicensis v: ii.105. Ejus-
dem xxxix.
It is mentioned by Pausanias,
v. 25: that the shield of Idome-
neus, a descendant of the sun,
had the device of a cock upon
it, for the following reason : ᾿1δο-
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 215
Each of these authorities, therefore, places the gal-
licintum between the beginning of the conticinium,
and the end of the de media nocte: that is, the first
cock-crow was supposed to be just after the latter, and
the third just before the other: whence, if these were
equal divisions of time, the first cock-crow would be
as much after midnight, as the third would be be-
fore morning; and morning, πρωΐ, or mane, being al-
ways determined by sunrise, at the equinox, when the
sun rises at six, the diluculum begins about five, and
the antelucem, or conticinium, about four.
μενεύς ἐστιν ὁ ἀπόγονος Μίνω: τῷ
δὲ Ἰδομενεῖ γένος ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἡλίου τοῦ
πατρὸς Πασιφάης: Ἡλίου δὲ ἱερόν
φασιν εἶναι τὸν ὄρνιθα, καὶ ἀγγέλ..
λειν ἀνιέναι μέλλοντος τοῦ ἡλίου. In
like manner, Plutarch, De Py-
thiz Oraculis, vii. 575, tells us of
an artist who, to express morn-
ing, painted a cock on the hand
of Apollo ; and (Eckhel, i. 212.)
from the same connexion of this
bird with day, ἡμέρα or ἱμέρα, the
coins of Himera in Sicily had
the image of a cock upon them.
Cf. Pollux, Onomasticon, i.
cap. 7. ὃ. 8: Heliodorus, AXthi-
opica, i.18: Basil, Operum i,
107. ἢ: Theophylact, i. 255. C.
In Mare. xiv. and 478. C. in
Lue. xxii,
Cock-crow, as such, was an
important time in the observ-
ances of the primitive church,
The great fast, in Passion-week,
which began on the Parasceue
or Friday, was appointed to ter-
minate at it. Vide Constitu-
tiones Apostolice, v. 15. PP.
Apostolici, 255.C. D: 18. 258.
D.E: 19. 259. B: Rel. Sacre,
ii, 385. 17:- 386. 2: 390. 13:
SS. Dep. Vaticana Collectio, i.
66. A. B: Eusebii Questiones
ad Marinum, ii: Epiphanius,
i. 1105. ἢ. Expositio Fidei,
xxii. &c. The Apostolical Con-
stitutions make it one of the
stated times of prayer, vill. 34.
365. 1). E: διὰ τὸ τὴν ὥραν (sup-
ple ἐκείνην) εὐαγγελίζεσθαι τὴν παρ--
ουσίαν τῆς ἡμέρας εἰς ἐργασίαν τῶν
τοῦ φωτὸς ἔργων. Cf. Ambrose,
Operum i. 112. C. Hexaémeron,
v. xxiv. ὃ. 88. and li. 1061. D.
Epistole, Ixix. §. 3. and 1219.
A—D. Hymnus 1. It was ἃ
common notion, too, that cock-
crow was the actual time when
our Lord rose from the dead,
Prudentius, Operum i. 5. Cath-
emerinen i. i. Ad Galli Cantum.
Ales diei nuntius | Lucem pro-
pinquam precinit; | Nos exci-
tator mentium | Jam Christus
ad vitam vocat. 1—4. Vox ista
qua strépunt aves, | Stantes sub
ipso culmine, | Paulloante quam
lux emicet, | Nostri est figura
judicis. 13—16. Inde est, quod
omnes credimus | Illo quietis
tempore | Quo gallus exsultans
canit, [ Christum redisse ex. in-
feris. 65—68.
Ρ 4
216 Dissertation Forty-second.
At the equinox, therefore, the last cock-crow would
be supposed to be about four in the morning * ; and
consequently the first about two, and the second about
three: for experience shews that between two succes-
sive cock-crows, as such, the interval is commonly one
hour: from which natural effect, too, the division of
time itself, as founded upon it, must have been origi-
nally taken. The observation of experience is con-
firmed by what happened in the present instance. Be-
tween the second and the third of Peter’s denials,
which means in fact between the first and the second
of the cock-crowings in question, there was this in-
terval of time.
The time, then, of St. Peter’s denials, and the time
of the first and the second of our Lord’s examinations,
being both nearly limited by the first and the second
of the crowings of the cock, would both be compre-
hended between a little before two, and a little after
three, in the morning; a conclusion which is perfectly
agreeable to the whole course of events before Jesus
was brought to the palace of the high priest, and to
the whole course of events after that. The second
examination having been finished soon after three, it
would begin to be day, as St. Luke expresses it, soon
after four; and the third having been speedily com-
pleted, our Lord might be taken to Pilate soon after
five; a time which St. John would naturally describe
by zpwia, because earlier than sunrise or πρωΐ, though
* This coincidence is very
plainly expressed in Virgil's
poem, called Moretum, lines
1, 2. Jam nox hibernas bis
quinque peregerat horas, | Ex-
cubitorque diem cantu predi-
xerat ales: whence it appears
that the last cock-crow synchro-
nized. with the tenth hour of
the night complete ; that is, if
these were equinoctial hours,
with four in the morning.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 217
much later than the dawn of day *. With this event
the particulars of our second division will expire.
The third division is contained by Matt. xxvii. 3-31.
Mark xv. 2-20. Luke xxiii. 2-25. and John xviii. 90--
xix. 16. all inclusively.
The first circumstance in the order οὗ its events is
the repentance followed by the death of Judas, as re-
corded by St. Matthew only. The time and the place
of this event were manifestly such as to come critically
between the close of the last, and the commencement
of this, division. ‘That condemnation of our Lord,
which is said to have produced this change of mind,
is clearly referred by St. Matthew, (xxvii. 3.) to the
condemnation by the Sanhedrim, xxvi. 66. before: it
could have nothing to do with the condemnation by
Pilate; first, because no such condemnation had yet
taken place; and secondly, because that was not a
distinct condemnation, independent of this, but merely
the execution of the sentence of the Sanhedrim in
consequence of this.
The abduction of Jesus to Pilate was not that he
might be condemned afresh, but the necessary conse-
quence of his being condemned already. The judg-
ment of the council had pronounced him worthy of
death ; which, in the absence of the power of ‘life and
death, was the utmost they could do. But to give effect
to the judgment it was necessary to resort to the civil
governor. The abduction to Pilate, therefore, might
justly be considered the sign and seal of our Saviour’s
death. 7
If all this was known to Judas, that. is, if he had
* Philo Judeus, i. 7. 1. ἐπιγίνεται τῷ ἡλίῳ. Tpwia answers
29. De Mundi Opificio: οὗ. to mane, which Varro also, apud
τοι δέ εἰσιν ἑσπέρα te καὶ mpwia’ Servium, ad Aineid. ii. 268. loc.
ὧν ἡ μὲν προευαγγελίζεται μέλλοντα οἷ, distinguished from ortus or
ἥλιον ἀνίσχειν, ἠρέμα τὸ σκότος sunrise.
ἀνείργουσα᾽ ἡ δὲ ἑσπέρα καταδύντι
218 Dissertation Forty-second.
been present, during the course of proceedings, from
the time of the seizure of the person of Jesus, until
now, or in any situation to have been subsequently a
spectator of the event (which supposition there is no
reason to call in question) then, if his repentance at
the issue of his perfidy ever took place, it would most
naturally occur at this critical moment, when the
fate of his Master seemed to have been decided upon.
With the motives of his repentance, which were pro-
bably connected with the motives of his perfidy, we
have nothing todo. It is possible that he might not wish,
or at least might not expect, such a result as ensued. He
might suppose that our Lord would deliver himself at
last by miracle; or that the violence of his enemies
would not be allowed to proceed so far against him as
ultimately to put him to death. Or, if he expected
and even desired the result beforehand, still his con-
duct subsequently might be the simple effect of re-
morse; when it had come to pass.
If, however, the transaction between him and the
Sanhedrim occurred at this point of time, viz. just
after the abduction of our Lord to Pilate, then the
scene where it happened, and the time of the day, are
implicitly an argument that this abduction followed upon
such a third examination, and at such a time, as St.
Luke gave us reason to suppose. For the scene was
certainly the temple, and the temple was the regular
place for holding the assemblies of the council: the
time was πρωΐα, a period earlier than πρωΐ, and, there-
fore, coincident with the time when preparations usually
began for the morning sacrifice, which was to be offered
a little before zpwi. Mane etiam, says Josephus‘,
aperto templo, oportebat facientes traditas hostias in-
troire: et meridie rursus, dum clauderetur templum.
5 Contra Apionem, ii. 7. p. 1244.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 219
At this time, then, the Sanhedrim, or most of their
body, would be in the temple of course; and it is
clear that Judas was there too, a spectator, as it would
seem, of the result: and if he was there in any such
capacity, our Lord must have been there also. Conse-
quently he had been removed from the palace of the
high priest thither. Had not this been the case, the
transaction between Judas and the council, which ended
in his throwing down the pieces of silver, would have
taken place in the palace of the high priest, not in the
temple; for there is no reason to suppose he made
choice of the latter intentionally. Our Lord’s final
examination, then, and his ultimate abduction to Pilate,
took place in and from the temple. Nor do I think
that the Providence of God, with a view to the pre-
servation of the typical character in which he was to
suffer, would allow them to take place in and from any
other quarter. :
The sequel of the history of the repentance of Judas,
excepting his death which might have happened im-
mediately afterwards, from 6-10. in St. Matthew’s ac-
count, is manifestly somewhat proleptical. The. pur-
chase of the potter's field with the money returned by
him must, in the nature of things, have been a later
occurrence ; which is specified now merely to make an
end of the account. The allusion to the name of this
field, as still current in the time of the writer, is one
among other internal evidences that St. Matthew’s Gos-
pel was written early, and among the Jews, or on the
spot. It is by a singular mistake, however, that the
field in question has been commonly confounded with
that other Aceldama, mentioned in the speech of St.
Peter, Acts i. 19. as the scene of the suicide* of Judas.
- * 1 call this a suicide ; because _ tive admits of no other construc-
ἀπήγξατο in St. Matthew’s narra- tion, but that of his hanging
220 Dissertation Forty-second.
That field was purchased by Judas, with all or with
part of the wages of his iniquity, before his death;
but this with the money returned by him, and after
his death: that purchase must have been made on the
Thursday, and certainly before the morning of the
Friday, in Passion-week; this, either on the Friday,
or on some day even later than that. But what is the
chief distinction, the prophecy of Zechariah, xi. 12, 13.
was fulfilled, and is cited as fulfilled, by this last pur-
chase'; whereas if the two fields were the same, unless
the prophecy was twice fulfilled, it must have been
fulfilled by the first.
The identity of name should constitute no difficulty.
The name would be given to commemorate a common
circumstance in the history of the fields, and would be
equally appropriate to that circumstance in either case;
in the one, as the scene of a remarkable suicide; in the
latter, as still more justly entitled to the name, because
bought with the price of blood, and that of the blood of
our Saviour. Hieronymus, De Situ et Nominibus: Ager
fullonis...ostenditur autem nunc usque locus in subur-
banis Jerusalem—Acheldama, Ager sanguinis—qui ho-
dieque monstratur in A‘lia, ad australem plagam mon-
tis Sion": the import of which passages is to describe
the two places rather as distinct than as the same.
himself. Thus, pera δὲ, λέγουσε ὥστ᾽ ἰδεῖν Ἑὐριπίδην. Anthologia
ὡς ἡ παῖς ἀπήγξατο ὑπὸ ἄχεος. He- ii. 60. Philemon—*H τριηραρ-
rodotus, ii. 131-- Ἐκ τῶν δένδδων χῶν ἀπήγξατ᾽, ἢ πλέων ἥλωκέ ποι.
τινὲς ἀπήγχοντο. Thucydides, iil. Cf. Xeno-
81—Amd καλοῦ ξύλου κἂν amdayéa-
σθαι. Suidas in”Aéwov. Videalsoad
᾿Απήγξατο. Ἔκ τῶνδ᾽ ὅπως τάχιστ᾽
ἀπάγξασθαι θεῶν. Auschylus, Sup-
plices, 481—Ei ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν οἱ
τεθνηκότες | αἴσθησιν εἶχον ἄνδρες,
ὥς φασίν τινες, | ἀπηγξάμην ἂν
Atheneus, ili. 62.
phon, Hiero, vii. 13: Plutarch,
De Liberis Educandis, vi. 34:
Appian, B. C. i. 73: iv. 26:
fBlian, Varie Hist. v. 8: Epicte-
tus apud Arrianum, i. 2. p. 12:
ὅταν γοῦν πάθῃ τις ὅ τι εὔλογον,
ἀπελθὼν ἀπήγξατο.
t Concerning 30 pieces of silver as the price of blood, see Exod. xxi. 32.
u Operum ii. Pars i*. 407. 410.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 221
With regard to the remaining particulars, or those
which concern the examination of Jesus before Pilate,
the same confession must be made of the difficulties
which stand in our way, with the same qualification
that the task of reconciling St. Matthew with St. Mark,
or St. Luke with either, is comparatively easy through-
out: but as to St. John, except upon one supposition,
the business of reducing this part of his accounts to an
implicit agreement with their’s is the most arduous of
any which we have yet encountered. On that one
supposition, indeed, every difficulty is removed, and our
work becomes simple and easy in the highest degree.
This supposition proceeds, as in other instances of
a like kind, on the assumption of the supplementary
relation of St. John’s Gospel to the rest, at this period
of a common history, as well as every where else.
His account of the proceedings before Pilate, with the
exception of a very little towards the end, is the relation
of particulars entirely omitted by the former Gospels,
and entirely supplied by his Gospel: with regard to
which, the certainty of omissions in St. Matthew and
St. Mark, expressly supplied by St. Luke, is a good ar-
gument @ priort for the probability of similar omissions
in all the three, expressly supplied by St.John. Now
the mission of our Lord to Herod, which must have
been one of the circumstances in the course of proceed-
ings before Pilate, is a decided instance of the former
description. Besides, we have seen too many proofs
already of the peculiarity of St. John’s manner, not to
conclude that where he is the most diffuse, his predeces-
sors must have been the most con¢ise; and, vice versa,
where he is the most concise, they must have been the
_ most circumstantial. And it will be confessed that, up
to a certain point in the detail of proceedings before
Pilate, he is eminently minute and. particular : which
222 Dissertation Forty-second.
may justly encourage the presumption that there, more
especially, he had it in view, by the fulness of his own
accounts, to make up for the deficiencies of the rest.
If this be the case, our business in this part of the
Gospel Harmony is not to reduce the details of St.
John to an agreement with those of the rest, as if all
were the account of the same things; but to determine,
if possible, the precise point of time where his narrative
will terminate, and their’s will begin: in other words,
after what part of St. John’s account we ought to insert
their’s, or before what part of their’s we ought to place
St. John’s. For this purpose I shall endeavour to shew
that there was a determinate period in the course of
the proceedings before Pilate, after our Lord was
brought to him, until which he was not examined in
public, or pro tribunal ; but after which he was: and
that the circumstantial part of the narrative of St. John
belongs entirely to the time before that point; the cir-
cumstantial part of the narrative of the rest belongs
entirely to the time after it.
I. When Jesus was first brought to Pilate, the Jews,
we are told, for the reason specified in the text, entered
not into the Pretorium; and consequently Pilate came
out to them. Hence it is evident that, as yet, neither
they nor Jesus had entered the Preetorium: and while
our Lord was still without, the conversation ensued
which is recorded John xviii. 29-32.
II. After this Pilate returned into the Prztorium,
and called Jesus in to him also; leaving the Jews his
accusers, for the same reason as before, still without:
and while he and Jesus were within by themselves,
consequently while they were alone and in private, the
conversation takes place between them, xviii. 33-38.
as far as τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια. |
III. Then Pilate, without waiting for the answer to
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 223
his question, issued a second time from the Preetorium ;
by himself, and leaving Jesus alone within; to speak
to his accusers without: and the conversation re-
corded xviii. 38. from καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν, to the end of
the chapter, now took place. In this was included the
Jirst express declaration of his conviction of the inno-
cence of Jesus, and the first express proposal, in defer-
ence to the privilege of the feast, that he should be re-
leased, followed by the jist express demand for the li-
beration of Barabbas in his stead. All this time, it
must be evident that Jesus himself was still in the
Pretorium, apart from Pilate, from his accusers, and
from the multitude, who were all without.
IV. His proposal, for the release of Jesus, having
been thus received, Pilate, as we shall see by and by,
again left the people outside, and returned into the
Pretorium a second time; where Jesus was: and ap-
parently with the hope of mitigating the people by the
infliction of some chastisement upon him, caused him,
for the first time, to be scourged by the soldiers of his
guard, and arrayed out of mockery in purple.
V. For after this, we are told expressly, xix. 4, that
he came out again, whence it is clear that meanwhile
he must have gone in; which will be the thard time of
his coming forth. But he came out alone; for he in-
formed the people that he was going to bring out Jesus
unto them; that so they might be convinced, from the
manner in which he had decorated him, that he found
no fault in him; that he considered the charge of af-
fected royalty as nothing serious or dangerous. Ac-
cordingly, Jesus did come forth, for the first time since
his entering in, wearing the purple robe and the crown
of thorns with which the soldiers had invested him.
These particulars are all recorded, xix. 1-5.
VI. Hereupon, while Jesus was still in public, ex-
994, Dissertation Forty-second.
posed, and in such a dress, to the gaze of the people,
the conversation ensued which is related xix. 6-8. in- .
cluding a second attempt of Pilate to procure his liber-
ation.
VII. After this, however, it is evident that Pilate en-
tered the Preetorium for the third time again, and ei-
ther took Jesus back with him, or caused him to be
summoned to his presence thither a second time, in
order that the conversation between them, xix. 9-11.
might take place, as before, within the Przetorium, and
apart from the people.
VIII. When this was over, it is also manifest that
Pilate must have come out again by himself, for the
fourth time, leaving Jesus, as before, alone and within ;
or that third intercession with the people, which is
recorded at verse 12. could not have taken place with-
out.
Hitherto then there is no proof of any formal exami-
nation of our Lord at all, or of none which had been
transacted in public: whatever had passed, which
might be construed into an examination, had passed
between himself and Pilate, within the Preetorium,
apart from and unobserved by the people. T'wice only,
in the course of proceedings, as far as they had yet
extended, had Jesus been visible without; once, when
he was first brought to the governor, and again, when
he was produced to the people, arrayed in the mockery
of a kingly dress. But he had been speedily removed
within; and at this very time it must be evident that
he was still within.
IX. In consequence, however, of that last declaration
of the people, If thou let this man go, thou art not
Ceesar’s friend—every one who maketh himself a king
speaketh against Cesar; which implied a resolution,
did he refuse any longer to comply with their wish, to
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 225
accuse him to Tiberius, or at least was to put the ques-
tion upon a new footing, directly affecting his duty as
the lieutenant of Cesar; he brought out Jesus, we are
told, (which clearly demonstrates that before he was
within,) and consequently for the thzrd time of his ap-
pearing in public; and sat down himself ἐπὶ τοῦ βήμα-
τος, εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον AiOooTpwror. xix. 13.
Now what Pilate was thus doing, it is manifest he
was doing in public: and what he was thus doing in
public now, it is also manifest he could not have done
in public before. But from the very terms of the ac-
count itself, from the mention of the βῆμα, as the seat on
which he proceeded to sit, and from the name given to
the place where that βῆμα was fixed, λιθόστρωτον, it must
be evident that he was preparing to try our Saviour in
a new capacity; he was sitting down pro tribunali,
in his judicial or official character; in the ordinary
place, and on the ordinary seat, where, as the deputy
of Cesar, as the civil magistrate, as the administrator
of justice and the arbiter of life and death, he was
accustomed to hear, and to decide upon, all causes
brought before his cognizance.
It is well known to classical readers that the verna-
cular term érzbunal, which expresses in the Latin lan-
guage the seat of justice, is rendered in Greek by βῆμα;
and the vernacular phrase sedere or considere pro tri-
bunali, which expresses in the same language the as-
sumption of the seat of justice, as the preliminary step
to the discharge of the functions of a judge, is also ren-
dered in Greek by καθίσαι or καθῆσθαι ἐπὶ βήματος. If
examples are wanted in proof of this position, the fol-
lowing passages will supply them. Καθίσας ἐπὶ τοῦ βή-
ματος. Acts xii. 21—Ezi τὸ βῆμα. xviii. 12—A7o τοῦ
βήματος. Ib. 16—'Eurpoa bev τοῦ βήματος. Ib. 17—Kaé-
ἴσας ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος. xxv. 6—Em! rot βήματος Kai-
VOL. III. Q
226 Dissertation Forty-second.
capos. Ib. 10—Kaicas ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος. Ib. 17. Vide
also Rom. xiv. 10. 2 Cor. v.10.
Γενομένης κατηγορίας πρὸ τοῦ βήματος. Jos. Bell. Jud.
i. ix. 2.---Γῇ δὲ ἑξῆς ὁ Πἰλατος καθίσας ἐπὶ βήματος. ii.
ix. 8---Περιστάντες τὸ βῆμα---Απὸ τοῦ βήματος----Τ 14.
4—Bijua πρὸ αὐτῶν θέμενος. Ibid. xiv. 8—Macriyooa
πρὸ τοῦ βήματος. Ibid. 9—KabiGe μὲν ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος.
iii. x. 1O—II po τοῦ βήματος... ἀπέλυσα. Ant. xiv. x. 19.
10------ πὶ τὸ βῆμα ἧκεν. xviii. iii. 1— Ei τοῦ βήματος
ἀνέγνω. ΧΙΧ. Vi. 3—KaOicas ἐπὶ βήματος. Xx. Vi. 2----
Kat βῆμα καὶ τὸ τοιοῦτον ὀνομάζεται, ἐφ᾽ οὗ τις ἑζόμενος
δικάζει. Dio Cassius, xliv. 12-- Ἐπὶ βήματος αὐτῷ καθη-
μένῳ. ἵν. 38--- πεποίητο μὲν yap βῆμα ἐν τῆ ἀγορᾷ, ἐφ᾽
οὗ προκαθίζων ἐχρημάτιζε. lvii. 7—KadeCopevos δ᾽ ἐπὶ TOU
βήματος. Appian, B.C. v. 48. :
It is known also that the tribunals of the magistrates
at Rome were placed in the midst of a rising ground,
or elevated area, the floor of which, at this period of
their history, commonly consisted of that species of
ornamental pavement, called mosaic or tessellated ; of
which many specimens still continue to be found. Pa-
vimenta, says Pliny", originem apud Grecos habent,
elaborata arte, picture ratione; donec lithostrota ex-
pulere eam. There is an-allusion to these pavements
as such, in the following passage of Lucilius’:
Quam lepide lexeis compost? ut tesserulz omnes
Arte pavimento, atque emblemate vermiculato.
M. Varro, De Re Rustica”: Nuncubi hic vides citrum,
aut aurum? num minium, aut Armenium*? num quod
emblema, aut lithostrotum ?
Lithostrota, continues Pliny, acceptavere jam sub
Sylla: parvulis certe crustis: extat hodieque quod in
u H. N. xxxvi. 60. Vide also Seneca, Epistole, Ixxxvi. §. 5. v Apud Ci-
ceronem, De Oratore, iii. 43. and Orator, 44. w Lib. iii. cap. 2. x De
Minio, vide Pliny, H. N. xxxiii. 36—40. De Armenio, xxxvi. 10. Vitruvius,
De Architectura, vii. 5. ad finem.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 227
Fortune delubro Przeneste fecit ἡ, The customs which
use or fashion had established at Rome, whether in
the administration of justice or in any other respect,
were generally observed by the magistrates, both the
imperial and the proconsular, in the provinces. Julius
Cesar carried such luxuries about with him even in
his military expeditions: In expeditionibus tessellata et
sectilia pavimenta circumtulisse * prodiderunt scilicet*.
* Cicero, Ad Quintum Fratrem,
iii, 1: Villa mihi valde placuit,
propterea quod summam digni-
tatem pavimentata porticus ha-
bebat: and again; Pavimenta
recte fieri videbantur. Philo
Judeus, 1.157.1.42. De Cheru-
bim: καθάπερ yap κονιάματα καὶ
γραφαὶ καὶ πινάκια καὶ λίθων πολυ-
τελῶν διαθέσεις, αἷς οὐ μόνον τοί-
χους ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ ἐδάφη ποικίλλουσι,
κα, τ A. Seneca, Epistole, cxiv.
g: Ut lacunaribus pavimento-
rum respondeat nitor—cxv. 9:
Miramur parietes tenui marmore
inductos—Naturalium Questio-
num i. Pref. 5: Tunc juvat inter
sidera ipsa vagantem divitum pa-
vimenta ridere. Suetonius, Au-
gustus, 72: Et sine marmore
ullo, aut insigni pavimento con-
clavia. Arrian, Epictetus, iv. 7.
630. line 9: σοὶ μέλει πῶς ἂν ἐν
λιθοστρώτοις οἰκήσητε, πῶς παῖδές
σοι, K,T. A.
Pliny, it is true, distinguishes
between the Lithosirotum and
the Pavimentum; but St. John’s
term Gabbatha, in Hebrew, or
Λιθόστρωτον in Greek, would ap-
ply to each: and I consider it
most probable that the Pavi-
mentum as such is meant: as
the preceding quotations them-
w H.N. xxxvi. 64.
a vi. i. 7. b Ib. 8.
x Suetonius, Vita, 46.
¢ v.v. 2. Contra Apionem, ii. 7. p. 1244.
selves serve to imply.
The lithostrotum on which
Pilate was now sitting down, no
one, I should apprehend, would
readily think of confounding
with the lithostrotum mention-
ed by Josephus in his History
of the War Y, as the scene of a
remarkable exploit, performed
by a single Roman soldier, nam-
ed Julian, against an host of the
Jews. Yet this confusion has
been made by a critic of cele-
brity, Professor Htig2; which
makes it necessary to say some
few words concerning it.
That lithostrotum was mani-
festly the pavement of the outer
temple. The Romans were al-
ready in possession of Antonia ;
and the contest was now τοῦ
παρελθεῖν εἰς τὸ Gyov®, At this
time it was that Julian perform-
ed the feat ascribed to him, and
by his unassisted valour drove
the Jews μέχρι τῆς τοῦ ἐνδοτέρω
ἱεροῦ yovias>, This is a clear
description of the inner temple :
to which also the name of ἅγιον
was properly applicable: τὸ yap
δεύτερον ἱερὸν (the first. court
whereof was the women’s) ἅγιον
exadeiro®, It is as plain an in-
dication that the contest was
y vi. i. 8. Z Vol. i. 4.
Q 2
228 Dissertation Forty-second.
We have then the clearest evidence that, at this
moment, Pilate was preparing to do something which
he had not done yet; viz. to judge our Lord in good
earnest, sitting officially and pro tribunali: which
being the case, whatever had preceded this point of
time, that is, the whole of the previous account, was
either extrajudicial, either no examination at all, or
an examination entirely preliminary and private. This
point of time the narrative specifies in a manner which
might be strictly applicable to it; for we have seen that
our Lord would first be brought before Pilate about
πρωΐα, that is, soon after five in the morning; and if
we assign the space of one hour to the intermediate
events, we assign what is abundantly sufficient for
them, down to the time of this sitting pro tribunali ;
which would consequently be soon after six. And the
Evangelist so defines it accordingly—jv δὲ παρασκευὴ
There is no authority
for changing this reading into τρίτη *—and if there
“ ὸ Φ δὲ ε λ e
TOU πασχα wpa CG WO CU εΚΤῆ “.
going on previously in the outer
temple. Now as Julian was
pursuing the enemy here, xara
λιθοστρώτου τρέχων, running over
not the lithostrotum, but a li-
thostrotum, that is, over a paved
surface, he stumbled and fell.
There is reason to believe that
every court of the temple was
thus paved; and that the outer--
most court of all was so is placed
beyond a question by Josephus
himself: τὸ δὲ ὕπαιθρον ἅπαν πεποί--:
κίλτὸ παντοδαπῶν λίθων κατεστρω-
μένον. Tothe same effect the
author of the work ascribed to
Aristeus, or Aristeas: τὸ δὲ πᾶν
ἔδαφος λιθόστρωτον καθέστηκε 4,
; © Bell. v. ν. 2.
Josephus, Havercampii.
To suppose however that the
tribunal of Pilate could have
been placed in any court of the
temple would be palpably ab-
surd.
* It is very true that Gries-
bach has placed the various
reading τρίτη, in his interior mar-
gin, preceded by the symbol ~,
which denotes equality to the
received reading ἕκτη. But I
cannot subscribe to this opin-
ion; and it may reasonably be
matter of surprise that so accu-
rate and judicious a critic should
ever have inclined to it. Every
MS. of note, and ali the ver-
sions, exhibit the Vulgate read-
ἃ Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica, ix. 38. 453. D. or
e Ch, xix. 14.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 229
were, it would be only to supersede a smaller difficulty
by a much greater. The third hour of the day, if St.
Mark is to be believed, was not the time when Pilate
began to try our Saviour, before he delivered him to
be executed ; but the time when, his trial being over
including many intermediate events, he was led away
to his execution. There is no alternative therefore left
except to embrace the hypothesis of Townson; viz.
that the computation of hours by St. John is not the
same with the Jewish or the Roman, but with the
modern: the probability of which hypothesis has been
strongly confirmed elsewhere’. Nor is it any objec-
tion that the detail of proceedings before Pilate is thus
made to begin at too early an hour. The habits of
ancient times were very different in these respects from
those of modern. To μὲν ὄρθριον, says Herodotus of
Amasis king of Egypt, μέχρι ὅτου πληθώρης ἀγορῆς,προθύ-
Mos ἔπρησσε τὰ προσφερόμενα
ing ἕκτη: and as to the other
authorities which he cites, will
any one believe that the auto-
graph of St. John’s Gospel was
extant at Ephesus in the time of
the Paschal Chronicle, perhaps
six hundred years or more after
the Christian era? (Cf. Rel. Sa-
cre, il.371.note.) Is the conjec-
ture that the numeral note γ΄.
might possibly be confounded
with that of ς΄. to be received as
proof of the fact? It appears
from the SS. Dep. Vaticana Coll.
i. 92. B. that Eusebius proposed
his conjectural emendation of
the number in question early in
the fourth century ; yet he knew
of no copy of St. John’s Gospel,
in which the numeral γ', sup-
posing that to be the true, was
f Dissertation xxi. vol. ii. 216.
πρήγματαϑ, Philo, Adver-
to be found. Vide also The-
ophylact, 1. 748. B—749. C. in
Joh. xix. In one word, is it
not infinitely more probable that,
if the original reading was ἕκτη,
there would be a constant ten-
dency to change it into τρίτη,
that so the testimony of St.
John might be reconciled appa-
rently with that of St. Mark,
than the contrary? For had the
original reading been τρίτη, not
one MS, or other authority, we
may venture to affirm, would
have exhibited &rn: but if it
Was ἕκτη, it becomes a moral
certainty that in the course of
time, and in some instance or
other, it would be found to be
assimilated to τρίτη.
& ii. 1.73.
Q 3
230 Dissertation Forty-second.
sus Flaccum® also shews that this period of the day,
viz. from πρωΐ or sunrise to the third hour in the morn-
ing, was the usual period for judicial proceedings: τὰ
μὲν γὰρ πρῶτα τῶν θεαμάτων, ἄχρι τρίτης ὥρας ἢ τετάρτης
Between these times the exhibi- .
tions of gladiators took place at Rome; in allusion to
which it was an order of Augustus, Mulieres ante ho-
ram quintam veuire in theatrum non placere *',
The particulars specified in the same account, from
this time forward to the time when Jesus was deli-
vered to be crucified, consist of only two or three cir-
9 e na ΄' 4
ἐξ ἑωθινοῦ, ταῦτα ἣν.
* Dio, xxxix. 65: the fifth
hour of the day was the time
appointed by law for the begin-
ning of public business at vn
Ovid, Amorum i. ΧΙ]. 19.
Aurora, Atque eadem iin
consulti ante atria mittis; |
Unius ut verbi grandia damna
ferat—Horace, Epistole, i. vi. 20.
Gnavus mane forum, et vesper-
tinus pete tectum—Sermonum
ii. vi. 34. Ante secundam | Ro-
scius orabat sibi adesses ad puteal
cras—Ibid. i. ix. 35. Ventum
erat ad Vest, quarta jam parte
diei | Preterita, et casu tunc
respondere vadato | Debebat—
Juvenal, i.127. Ipse dies pul-
chro distinguitur ordine rerum,
| Sportula, deinde forum, juris-
que peritus Apollo—xiil. 157.
Hee quota pars scelerum que
custos Gallicus urbis | Usque a
Lucifero, donec lux occidat, au-
dit ?
Philostratus, Apollonius Tyan.
Vili. 1. 373.A: ἡλίου γὰρ ἐπιτολαὶ
ἤδη, Kal ἀνεῖται τοῖς ἐλλογίμοις ἡ ἐς
αὐτὸ πάροδος : that is, to the em-
h Operum ii. 520. 1. 30.
Vita, 44. Vide also Claudius, 34.
Vide also Seneca De Ira, iii. 43.
peror’s tribunal, as of any other
magistrate at Rome.
The following is Martial’s ac-
count of the distribution of a
day at Rome: Prima salutantes,
atque altera, continet hora; |
Exercet raucos tertia caussidicos.
| In quintam varios extendit
Roma labores: | Sexta quies las-
sis, septima finis, erit. | Sufficit
in nonam nitidis octava pale-
stris, | Imperat exstructos fran-
gere nona toros. | Hora libello-
rum decima est, Eupheme, meo-
rum, | Temperat ambrosias cum
tua cura dapes. Epigrammatum
iv. 8. Cf. Virgil, Georgica, ii.
462: Horace, Epp. i. vii. 68.
75: li. 1. 103: Pliny, Epp. iii.
i.4,5: Philostratus, Apollonius
Tyan. v. 11. 238. B.
Hee tot millia, ad forum pri-
ma luce properantia, quam turpes ©
lites, quanto turpiores advocatos
consciscunt. Seneca, De Ira, ii.
7.§.3. Mane leonibus et ursis
homines, meridie spectatoribus
suis, objiciuntur. Idem, Epistole,
vii. §. 3. Vide also Ixx. ὃ. 20
i Suetonius,
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week, 231
cumstances; and contrasted with the number and mi-
nuteness of the antecedent details, lead irresistibly to
the conclusion that St. John was purposely as concise
here as he had been copious hitherto: the truth of
which conclusion will be placed beyond a question, if
it can be proved that his predecessors had begun their
accounts of the same things just where his own break
off. In instituting and conducting the comparison of
these accounts, I propose to take St. Matthew in con-
junction with St. Luke; St. Mark being altogether the
same substantially, though not quite 80. circumstantial,
as St. Matthew; and all three, as I apprehend, begin-
ning their detail of the proceedings before Pilate at the
same point of time.
There are then two facts disclosed by St. Matthew’s
narrative—the first, the use of the phrase ἔστη ἔμπρο-
σθεν τοῦ ἡγεμόνος, with its peculiar signification, the
other, the message of Pilate’s wife ‘—either of which
would prove that the date of this narrative is from the
time when Pilate was sitting pro tribunali; and not
before. The phrase in question is simply and purely
forensic; denoting the formal or official constitution
and appearance of an accused party, in the character
of reus, φεύγων, or criminal, before a competent au-
thority sitting upon him in judgment!. It is the same
thing in this sense as ἐπὶ constructed with the genitive,
to denote a like effect; of which an infinite variety of
examples might be produced™. It intimates there-
fore, a. point of time when Pilate was sitting officially
upon Jesus as his judge, and Jesus had been brought
officially before him as an arraigned party.
The message of the wife of Pilate, as it appears
from the express testimony of St. Matthew, was de-
k Ch. xxvii. 11. 19. 1 Compare Acts xyiii. 17. xxiv. 20. xxv. 10. xxvi.
6. 2Cor.v. 10. Mark xiii. 9. Luke xxi. 36. m Acts xxiii. 30. xxiv.
19, 20. xxv. 9. το. 26. xxvi. 2. 1 Cor. vi. 1. 6.
Q 4
R232 . Dissertation Forty-second.
livered to him καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τοῦ Byuatos—that is, while
in that attitude, and acting in that capacity in which
the account of St.John left him. The presence of his
wife with him in his government is critically explained
by a passage of Tacitus": Inter que Severus Cecina
censuit, Ne quem magistratum, cui provincia obvenis-
set, uxor comitaretur. This motion was made U.C.
774, and it was negatived by the Roman senate. Now
the message, if received at or after the point of time
when he sat down on the tribunal, could not have
been received before the close of St. John’s account:
that knowledge of the dream then, which this message
communicated, could not be possessed before the same
time. But if Pilate knew nothing of his wife’s dream
when Jesus was first brought to him, is it unreason-
able to conjecture that it had not yet taken place; and
consequently must have taken place afterwards? Sup-
pose Jesus to have been brought to him soon after five,
and the assumption of the tribunal to have happened
soon after six; and proceedings to have gone on for
some time before the message was communicated ; nor
was our Lord’s trial finally over much before the third
hour of the day : suppose also that Pilate’s wife sent the
message as soon as she awoke, after being disturbed by
her dream: two conclusions would seem to follow ; she
must have had the dream after Jesus had been brought
to Pilate—she must have had it, and she would na-
turally speak of having had it, that day. I consider
this message therefore, a proof that she had not expe-
rienced her dream before Pilate assumed the tribunal ;
and consequently experienced it after. St. Matthew’s
manner of mentioning the message is such as to shew
that it was interposed in the course of proceedings
before and after it; Pilate was not beginning to sit,
n Annales, ili. 33.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 233
but had been sometime sitting, pro tribunali, when he
received it: and the final end of mentioning the fact
at all seems to have been the desire of specifying one
more, among the other reasons which would have pre-
vailed with Pilate to release our Saviour, if the people
could have been persuaded to relent.
This point then being presumptively established, we
may arrange the order of events from that time for-
ward, in conformity to it, as follows:
I. Pilate being seated pro tribunal, and Jesus of-
ficially arraigned before him, the accusation of the
chief priests and of the rest of the Sanhedrim, as re-
corded by St. Luke: the nature of which was such as
evidently to concern the jurisdiction of the lieutenant
of Cesar.
II. The question of Pilate addressed to Jesus,
founded upon the previous accusation, and explained
antecedently by it; Art thou the King of the Jews ?
with the answer of Jesus in the affirmative, (which is
that good confession, witnessed before Pontius Pilate,
referred to by St. Paul, 1 Tim. vi. 13,) recorded alike
by all the three Evangelists.
III. The continuance, in the next place, of what
may be considered the rezterated accusations of the
Scribes and Pharisees, as attested by St. Matthew and
St. Mark—and the silence of Jesus against them all;
a silence which excited the surprise of Pilate, and, to
express that surprise, produced the repetition of his
question to him.
IV. The address of Pilate to the leading men and
to the multitude present, according to St. Luke—de-
claring his conviction of the innocence of Jesus, as
founded upon the preceding examination ; which, if it
was an attempt to procure his liberation, was the first
such attempt in the course of this examination, but the
- 234 Dissertation Forty-second.
fourth which had occurred in all: then, their renewed
accusations, denying his innocence; and from the men-
tion of Galilee, arising out of those accusations, Pilate’s
inquiry if Jesus were a Galilean; and, upon finding
that to be the case, (according to the common opinion
that our Lord was born at Nazareth,) his sending him
forthwith to Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee,
(who was present himself in Jerusalem at the same
occasion of the Passover,) as to his proper master.
This mission we may presume would take place
about the end of the first hour of the day; or our
seven in the morning; but not later. Of its probable
motive—of the quarrel preexisting between Herod and
Pilate—and of the reconciliation between them, effected
this day, and in consequence, as it would seem, of this
very act, something has been said in Dissertation xxxv.
of the present work, to which I refer the reader. For
the mention however of the fact, and for the account
of what passed before Herod, to whom our Lord’s
accusers were sent as well as himself, similar alto-
gether to what had just passed before Pilate, we are
indebted solely to St. Luke. The going and the re-
turning, with the transaction of the proceedings be-
tween, would necessarily take up some time; yet not
so much but that Pilate might still wait in his seat
upon the tribunal for the return of the prisoner, and of
his accusers. His object in sending them to Herod
might be not only to pay a compliment to that prince,
but also to strengthen the argument for the release of
Jesus; if it should appear that Herod likewise, as well
as himself, had found no fault in him.
V. During this interval therefore, and while he was |
still sitting pro tribunali, I would place the message
of his wife.
VI. Upon the reappearance of Jesus, whom Herod
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 235
sent back, clothed in the mockery of a royal dress, as
he had been by Pilate, and with the same view in
this instance also, viz. to express his contempt of the
charge brought against him; I suppose those words to
have immediately ensued, which conclude the account
of St. John, xix. 14. from καὶ λέγει τοῖς ᾿Ιουδαίοις, to 15.
inclusive, prior to the delivery of Jesus up to be cruci-
fied. In calling him their King it is manifest that
Pilate was speaking ironically ; and even the irony is
naturally accounted for by the return and production
of Jesus, still wearing the purple robe, which Herod
had put upon him.
VII. The chief priests therefore as our Lord’s ac-
cusers, and the rest of the multitude, being again as-
sembled before Pilate sitting pro tribunali in his for-
mer attitude, and Jesus also being present in public,
the language of irony is dropped, and the people are
addressed in the serious manner recorded by St. Luke,
Xxiii. 13-16, concluding with a proposal to inflict a
moderate chastisement on the accused party, such as
might seem to be due for aspiring, however innocently,
at the name of King; and so to let him go: the fact
of which proposal, under such circumstances, is sub-
stantially confirmed by St. Matthew and by St. Mark ;
and makes the second instance of the kind since the
commencement of this examination, but the fifth which
had occurred upon the whole.
VIII. Though the proposal was rejected—yet was
it renewed once and again; making together the third
and the fourth instance respectively, since the begin-
ning of this trial in public, but the siath and the se-
venth in all: and these are instances recorded by each
of the three Evangelists, and in terms, especially as
concerns the second of them, very much the same.
IX. The obstinacy of the Jews remaining invincible,
236
Dissertation Forty-second.
Pilate now takes water; and to attest his own inno-
cency in consenting to the death of Jesus out of defe-
rence to their importunity, performs before the eyes of
the people the symbolical action recorded by St. Mat-
thew alone.
X. This being done, and the sacrifice of Jesus to the
will of the people being now resolved upon—as a ne-
cessary preliminary to the execution of his sentence,
according to the custom of the Roman law™%, he is first
scourged with rods, and then given up to the insults
of the soldiers, assembled together for that purpose 7.
The scourging took place in public, and was the second
instance of the infliction of such violence upon our
Saviour this morning; but the mockery was confined
to the Pretorium, where the robe and the crown of
thorns, spoken of here by St. Matthew and St. Mark,
had been employed, as we learned from St. John, for a
like purpose not long before; and would consequently
be ready for the same use now. The purple robe, in
which Jesus returned from Herod, either had been
taken off from him before the address of Pilate record-
ed under Article v11. or would necessarily be removed
from his person previous to the infliction of the scourg-
ing: and that putting of such a robe on again, which
is here ascribed to the soldiers, might literally take
place. Upon the detail of these particulars, both as
something minutely related by his predecessors, and,
as part of the history of our Lord’s contumelious treat-
* Thus it is that Josephus,in οὗ the honours paid in mockery
a like case, specifies the conduct
of Gessius Florus, as scourging
certain Jewish knights before he
crucified them : ovs, μάστιξι mpo-
αἰκισάμενος, ἀνεσταύρωσεν. Bell.
Jud. ii. xiv. 0.
+ Compare with this account
to our Saviour, the description
of the affronts put upon Herod
Agrippa by the Alexandrian
mob, as recorded by Philo Ju-
dweus, ii. 522. 1. 26. et seqq. Ad-
versus Flaccum.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 23'7
ment in general, because they bore no indefinite resem-
blance to what had been experienced by him from the
Sanhedrim before; St. Luke, with his usual regard to
conciseness, is silent.
XI. The insults of the band being concluded, and
Jesus being again clothed in his own raiment, he is
finally consigned to the four soldiers who were to ac-
complish his execution; and led away from the Pre-
torium to be crucified. This fact is specified by all the
Evangelists; and with it the third of our divisions
expires. Before however we proceed to the fourth, it
may be necessary to pause for the sake of one or two
observations on the preceding account.
First; if upon its own grounds of probability, the
position, that the detail of proceedings before Pilate,
in the first three Evangelists, belongs to a different
point of time from the detail of the same proceedings
in the fourth, can be satisfactorily established ; we are
not called upon, and perhaps it may not be easy for
us, to assign the reasons why this was the case. The
former Evangelists had doubtless their motives for
what they have done both in this instance, and in every
‘similar instance, besides this. Among the presumptive
causes, however, which may be supposed to have pro-
duced this effect, Ε would enumerate the following.
I. The course of proceedings before Pilate, from the
time when he assumed the tribunal, acquired the ap-
pearance of a regular trial, conducted with the usual
forms and solemnities of the Roman law; which it
had not acquired until then. This point of time, there-
fore, constituted a new ἀρχὴ, a determinate period both
before and after, from which, and with which, an his-
torical account of the whole transaction might properly
begin.
II. The train of events from this time forward tend-
233 Dissertation Forty-second.
ed directly to one consummation, the condemnation and
the death of our Lord, as dependent on the instrumen-
tality of the Roman governor. But to condict the
detail of proceedings, as soon as possible, to this con-
clusion; to shew how, and by what steps, the purpose
of the Sanhedrim, in transferring Jesus to Pilate, was
ultimately carried into effect; was that object to which
the history of these proceedings would naturally be di-
rected throughout.
III. The demeanour of our Lord also from the same
time forward assumed a new appearance: for whereas
in his examination before Pilate, apart from the people
and within the Preetorium, his conduct exhibited no
marks of reserve and no intentional silence whatever,
yet now, on being produced to the multitude, and ar-
raigned pro tribunali—saving that one reply to a ques-
tion of the judge’s, and not an accusation by the people,
which St. Paul denominates the good confession—it
does not appear that he so much as opened his lips.
The same fact is observable in his deportment before
Herod. It was now, consequently, that the language
of prophecy, respecting this part of the Messiah’s de-
meanour under his sufferings, the importance of which
to its fulfilment we may judge of from the testimony
of St. Peter, 1 Pet. ii. 21-23, compared with Isaiah liii.
7, began to be strictly verified by the event.
IV. The mission to Herod, and the consequent trial
of Jesus before the tetrarch of Galilee as well as be-
fore the Jewish council and the Roman governor, was
one of the incidents belonging to this period in parti-
cular; and the importance of that fact also to the ful-
filment of prophecy may be estimated from the refer-
ence made to it, Acts iv. 27.
V. The account which the former Evangelists had
given of these proceedings was clearly not complete or
Proceedings of Thursday and ‘Friday in Passion-week. 239
continuous ; as must appear from this consideration ;
viz. that the circumstances which they record, sup-
posed to have happened consecutively, would not have
sufficed to fill up the time within which they must have
happened ; that is, from πρωΐα, when the council of the
Sanhedrim broke up, to the third hour of the day, not
long before which Jesus was led away to be crucified.
But if those Evangelists had not given a consecutive
detail of events, they must have given a partial; and
however much they might have recorded, they must
still have left something unsaid.
VI. The supposition of some such proceedings
between Jesus and Pilate, as those in St. John, ante-
rior to the proceedings in the other Evangelists, pos-
sesses its use in clearing up or explaining certain
things which occur in them. As first; it would not
have appeared from their account why the charge,
brought against our Lord at the outset of his exami-
nation, was the specific charge of stirring up the people,
and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar; and why,
ever after, this insinuation should lie at the bottom of
any other subsequently advanced. It is seen however
from St.John, that the other charges—charges more
purely of a legal character—on which his enemies de-
nounced him at first, having been urged and failed, the
course of proceedings had of necessity conducted to this.
Secondly, it would not have appeared why Pilate, with-
out any examination, properly so called, of the pri-
soner, should so soon have expressed himself satisfied
of his innocence. It is seen, however, from St. John,
that he was convinced of it, or predisposed to acquiesce
in such a belief, already. In like manner it would not
have appeared how he came to know, or to conclude,
that our Lord’s accusers had delivered him up through
envy: but St. John shews that he had seen reason
240 Dissertation Forty-second.
enough to suspect that. Nor would it have appeared
why all at once, and without any previous statement
of his motives for desiring it, he should have been so
anxious to release Jesus instead of Barabbas ; nor sub-
sequently why he should have been so reluctant to con-
sent to his death at last. But it must appear from St.
John that this was no new alternative; and that his
conviction of the innocence of Jesus, even before he
began to try him officially, was so strong as not to be
easily overcome by any considerations whatever.
The fourth division comprehends Matt. xxvii. 32-
61. Mark xv. 21—the end, Luke xxiii. 26—the end, and
John xix. 17—-the end; all inclusively. In arranging
its particulars we meet with no difficulty which the
supplementary character of the later Gospels does not
easily remove. They may be considered in reference
to four subordinate periods of time: I. from the time
of leaving the Przetorium to the third hour of the
day: II. from the third hour of the day to the sixth:
III. from the sixth hour of the day to the ninth: IV.
from the ninth hour of the day to the commencement
of the sabbath.
The circumstances which belong to the first period
are these :
I. The setting out of Jesus from the Pretorium; a
fact specified by all the Evangelists; and along with
Jesus of two others, malefactors and Ayorai—a fact
which, though implicitly recognised by all, is men-
tioned in this, which is its proper place, solely by St.
Luke, xxiii. 32. These men, as we conjectured else-
where, were probably companions or accomplices of
Barabbas, whom St. John calls a ληστὴς as well as
them; and whose execution, if his liberation had not
been extorted by the people, would perhaps have taken
place along with their’s. With regard to the number.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 241
of soldiers by whom this procession would be escorted,
as there were four appointed for the execution of Jesus
in particular, there might be as many more for each
of the two others; or twelve in all, under the com-
mand of the same centurion, who was consequently the
thirteenth in number. |
II. At a point of time which, as it appears from
St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s account, coincided with
the moment of issuing from the Prztorium, the de-
tention of Simon the Cyrenean, as he was coming
from the country and casually passing by, to assist in
bearing the cross of Jesus. The object of this deten-
tion was certainly not to relieve our Lord from his
cross altogether—to carry which was, under all cir-
cumstances, a preliminary part of the punishment of
persons condemned to be crucified *; but to divide the
burden of it with him: for St. John is express that
part of it, at least, was carried by our Lord himself ;
and the other Evangelists, especially St. Luke, are
equally so that part of it was laid upon Simon. In
this manner, therefore, it is probable they would pro-
ceed through the streets of the city towards the gate;
one end of the cross, as we may conjecture, the upper,
resting on our Lord, and the other end, consequently
the lower, supported by Simon. The other two who
were proceeding to their execution also, it is manifest,
must have carried each their own; and we know not
how far, in the case of our Lord, the weight of the cross
itself, a solid and massy fabric of wood, large enough
* Charito, lib. iv. 66. 1. 2: mpon-
χθησαν οὖν πόδας τε καὶ τραχήλους
συνδεδεμένοι, καὶ ἕκαστος αὐτῶν τὸν
σταυρὸν ἔφερε. Cf. 1. 6: πολύ-
Xappos δὲ τὸν σταυρὸν βαστάζων,
κα, τ λ. Artemidorus, Oneiro-
critica, ii. 61. speaking of a man’s
VOL. III.
dreaming that he carried some
of the divinities in Hades, if he
be a malefactor, says he, σταυρὸν
αὐτῷ σημαίνει. ἔοικε yap καὶ 6
σταυρὸς θανάτῳ, καὶ ὁ μέλλων αὐτῷ
προσηλοῦσθαι πρότερον αὐτὸν βα-
στάζει.
242 Dissertation £orty-second.
and strong enough to support a full grown man, com-
pared with the physical strength necessary to sustain
it—the visible diminution of his bodily powers through
the various sufferings, mental or corporeal, which he
had recently endured—the distance of the place of
execution from the Przetorium—regard to the circum-
stance that he was not about to suffer as a malefactor,
but as a person of acknowledged innocence, given up
to be crucified for no fault of his own, but in com-
pliance with popular importunity—or even the mere
wantonness of authority—might induce the soldiers to
lay this service upon Simon.
III. While the procession was on the way to Cal-
vary, but not yet arrived at it, and probably while it
was still passing through the streets of Jerusalem ;
the pause—which takes place by our Lord’s turning
round, and, in the terms of the prophecy recorded
Luke xxiii. 27-31. addressing the crowd of females,
inhabitants of Jerusalem, net those who had followed
him from Galilee; who, with the natural compassion
of their sex, and not concurring in the crime of the
men, were weeping and bewailing after him. This
pause, which no doubt was involuntary on the part of
the soldiers, must have been produced by the same kind
of awe which influenced the band in the garden.
IV. Calvary or Golgotha to which the procession
was tending, according to Jerome, De Situ et Nomini-
bus, was situated outside of the city upon the north-
west: Golgotha ...usque hodie ostenditur in Avlia, ad
septentrionalem plagam montis Sion". Epiphanius, Ad-
_ versus Heereses, where he is accounting for the origin
of the name, describes it as follows®: οὔτε “γὰρ ἐν ἄκρᾳ
τινὶ κεῖται, ἵνα κρανίον τοῦτο ἑρμηνεύηται, ὡς ἐπὶ σώματος
κεφαλῆς τόπος λέγεται, οὔτ᾽ ἐπὶ σκοπιᾶς" καὶ “γὰρ οὔτε ἐν
ἢ Operum ii. Pars 1", 451. © Operum i. 394. C. D. Tatiani, v.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 245
ὕψει κεῖται παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους τόπους" ἄντικρυς γάρ ἐστι τὸ
τοῦ ᾿Ελαιῶνος ὄρος ὑψηλότερον καὶ ἀπὸ σημείων ὀκτὼ ἡ
Γαβαὼμ ὑψηλοτάτη" ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ ἄκρα, ἡ ποτὲ ὑπάρχουσα
. ἐν Σιὼν, νῦν δὲ τμηθεῖσα, καὶ αὐτὴ ὑψηλοτέρα ὑπῆρχε τοῦ
τόπου.
Jerome 4, however, while he mentions the same tra-
ditions which are here alluded to by Epiphanius*, ac-
counts for the name as implying the locus decollato-
rum, like the Gemoniz at Rome, the Ceadas at Sparta,
or the Barathrum at Athens 1; the common Tyburn,
or place of execution: and from the frequency of such
executions 7, and the abundance of the mouldering or
bleaching remains of bodies, which had probably under-
gone there the punishment of crucifixion, called in the
* The tradition in question
is most distinctly stated by Ba-
sil, Operum i. 937. A: in Isaiz v.
τ , , , > Ν /
Λόγος δέ tis ἐστι καὶ τοιόσδε,
κατὰ τὴν ἄγραφον γνώμην ἐν τῇ ἐκ-
κλησίᾳ διασωζόμενος" ὡς ἄρα πρώτη
«5 , » σ Ἂ»ὕ } eee
ἡ ᾿Ιουδαία ἄνθρωπον ἔσχεν οἰκήτορα
τὸν ᾿Αδὰμ, μετὰ τὸ ἐκβληθῆναι τοῦ
παραδείσου ἐν ταύτῃ καθιδρυθέντα,
εἰς παραμυθίαν ὧν ἐστερήθη. πρώτη
> ‘ \ Q7 ᾿,
οὖν καὶ νεκρὸν ἐδέξατο ἄνθρωπον,
> ° ~ > A A) ,
ἐκεῖ τοῦ ᾿Αδὰμ τὴν καταδίκην πλη-
ρώσαντος. καινὸν οὖν ἐδόκει εἶναι
τοῖς τότε θέαμα, ὀστέον κεφαλῆς,
τῆς σαρκὸς περιῤῥυείσης, καὶ ἀποθέ-
μενοι τὸ κρανίον ἐν τῷ τόπῳ, κρα-
νίου τόπον ὠνόμασαν. εἰκὸς δὲ μηδὲ
τὸν Νῶε τοῦ ἀρχηγοῦ πάντων ἀν-
θρώπων ἀγνοῆσαι τὸν τάφον, ὡς
μετὰ τὸν κατακλυσμὸν ἀπ᾽ αὐ-
τοῦ διαδοθῆναι τὴν φήμην. διόπερ
ὁ Κύριος, τὰς ἀρχὰς τοῦ ἀνθρωπείου
θανάτου ἐρευνήσας, εἰς τὸν λεγόμενον
, i
κρανίου τόπον τὸ πάθος ἐδέξατο, ἵνα
p Compare also Maimonides, De Ζ αἰ ἤοῖο Templi, ii. 2.
ἐν ᾧ τόπῳ ἡ φθορὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων
τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔλαβεν, ἐκεῖθεν ἡ ζωὴ τῆς
βασιλείας ἄρξηται. κ', τ. A. Cf.
Ambrose, i. 1528. E. In Lucam,
lib. x. δ. 114: Ipse autem crucis
locus, vel in medio, ut conspi-
cuus omnibus: vel supra Ade,
ut Hebrei disputant, sepultu-
ram. congruebat quippe ut ibi
vit nostre primitiz locarentur,
ubi fuerant mortis exordia. And
again, il. 1070. E. F. Epistola
Ixxi. ὃ. 10: Ibi Ade sepul-
crum; ut illum mortuum in
sua cruce resuscitaret. ubi ergo
in Adam mors omnium, ibi in
Christo omnium resurrectio.
+t On one occasion, about
thirty-two years before this time,
Varus, the governor of Syria,
had crucified 2000 of the Jews
at once, probably on this very
spot. Vide Dissertation v. vol.
1. 278.
q Operum iv.
Pars i?. 137. ad calcem. In Matt. xxvii. Cf. however, Ibid. Pars ii*. 547. ad calcem.
Epistola xliv. Cf. also, Origen, iii. 920. C. In Matt. Commentariorum Series, 126.
Theophylact, Operum i. 158.A. In Matt. xxvii: 257. E. In Marc. xv: 485. E. In
Lucam xxiii : 750. E. In Joh. xix. 44 Suidas, Bdpa@poy, Kaiddas, and Kedéas,
R 2
244 Dissertation Forty-second.
popular language the place of sculls. According to
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it was ne-
cessary that Christ should suffer ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς "
—and, therefore, without the gate: and Calvary would
answer to the former description by answering to the
latter; for Maimonides informs us * that the space in-
cluded by the walls of Jerusalem was supposed to an-
swer to the παρεμβολὴ, or the castra Israelitarum ; and
the space beyond them, to without the camp.
Here then, while the preparations were making to
erect the cross, the offer of the wine mixed with myrrh,
which St. Matthew expresses by vinegar and gall, (the
former capable of being literally understood, because
it may denote the ordinary beverage of the Roman
soldiers, who, having to keep watch about the crosses
for the rest of the day, must have brought their pro-
visions with them; the latter a general description for
something bitter,) may have taken place: Psalm ᾿χῖχ.
21. If this potion was intended to produce a stupi-
fying effect, and so to deaden the sensibility of pain,
it might be no uncommon thing under such circum-
stances; or at least in the present instance the offer of
it might be the act of some compassionate by-stander,
whether one of the soldiers, or not. ΤῸ accomplish pro-
phecy, which had specified this circumstance in parti-
cular, our Lord, as St. Matthew informs us, fasted of it,
but, that he might not diminish by artificial means the
entire burden of his sufferings, as both St. Matthew
and St. Mark apprise us, he would not drink of it.
V. The crucifixion of Jesus, or his attachment to
the cross, Psalm xxii. 16—along with that of the two
malefactors, Isaiah liii. 12—-and while they were nail-
ing him to it, his prayer of intercession for his execu-
r Ch. xiii. 11.12. Cf. Exod. xxix. 14. Lev. iv. 12. 21. viii. 17. xvi. 27. Numb.
xix. 3. 8 De Ratione Adeundi Templi, iii. 2. De Ratione Sacrificiorum, vii. 4.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week, 245
tioners, and for the rest of the people present, Isaiah
liii. 12. as recorded by St. Luke. The form or manner
of suspension upon the cross may be conceived from
the following description of it by Justin Martyr: ὄρ-
θιον yap τὸ ἕν ἐστι ξύλον, ἀφ᾽ οὗ ἐστι TO ἀνώτατον μέρος
" ’ ε , v4 + 5, , θῇ
εἰς κέρας ὑπερήρμένον ὅταν τὸ ἄλλο ξύλον προσαρμοσθῇῆ,
καὶ ἑκατέρωθεν ὡς κέρατα, τῷ évl κέρατι παρεζευγμένα, τὰ
5 , A WA na , , e , Q
ἄκρα φαίνηται" καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ METH πηγνύμενον, ὡς κερας Kat
ὍΣ
an)
> 4 ose 9 κ Oe ae ε , t *
avTo ἐξέχον EOTLV, ep ω εποχοῦνται ol σταυρουμενοι .
έ
* A cross consisted of one
main or principal beam, fixed
in the ground, perpendicularly
to the horizon. From this, at
about the distance of a man’s
height above the ground, pro-
jected a solid piece of wood, at
right angles to the upright post ;
and consequently parallel to the
horizon. To this, the feet of
the sufferer were nailed, and the
weight of the body rested upon
it. Towards the top of the ver-
tical beam, there was another
piece of wood, which projected
on either side of it, in a trans-
verse direction, at the same dis-
tance from the last mentioned
piece, as a man’s shoulders would
be from his feet. To this the
arms of the sufferer were attach-
ed, each at its full stretch, and
by nails driven right through the
palm. The head of the crucified
person, was not made fast; but
if it leaned upon any support,
it would be against the vertical
beam; the top of which pro-
jected upwards above it. Our
Lord’s attachment to the cross,
during which he uttered the
prayer of intercession, consisted
in making his feet fast to the
one board, and his arms to the
other: the painful severity of
which process it is more easy to
conceive than to describe. Yet
this was the moment when he
uttered the prayer in question.
This attachment doubtless took
place before the crosses were set
up in the ground ; and it is so
specified accordingly. The head
of Jesus was not secured; for
it is said, at the time of his ex-
piring, that he bowed the head
before he gave up the ghost.
Various particulars with re-
spect to the punishment of cru-
cifixion anciently, occur in the
Oneirocritica of Artemidorus,
Liber ii. 58: for instance, that
the cross was made of nails and
wood; that the person cruci-
fied was at a distance from the
ground ; that he was exposed in
that situation naked; that his
flesh was left to rot upon the
cross, in other words, that he
was not ordinarily buried. The
position of the sufferer on the
cross with the arms stretched,
is alluded to, Ibid. i. 78: κακ-
ovpyos δὲ ὧν σταυρωθήσεται, διὰ
τὸ ὕψος καὶ τὴν τῶν χειρῶν ἔκτασιν.
Cf. ἵν. κι. The ordinary height
of a cross from the ground, as
neither very high nor very low,
t Dialogus, 337. 1. 15—21.
R 3
246
Dissertation Forty-second.
To this part above the head the title, declaring the
crime for which he was supposed to suffer, (such also
being the Roman usage) would be attached ; and of the
several forms of the inscription each of the Evangelists
records one—St. Matthew, as was to be expected, the
native Hebrew or Aramaic; St. Mark, with equal pro-
priety, the Latin; and St. Luke, as consistently, the
Greek. It is observable, however, that none of them
notices the fact of the inscription in the same place,
except St. Matthew and St. Mark: St. John’s reason
for mentioning it will appear presently ; and St. Luke’s
is manifestly its connection with the history of the two
thieves, and with their different conduct towards our
Lord on the cross, respectively. The same inscription,
setting him forth as the King of the Jews, that is, as
the Christ, produced the railing address of the one,
and the expression of the faith of the other. On this
account St. Luke mentions it where he does; and but
for this, it is probable that he would not have alluded
to it at all.
The title in question must have been prepared be-
fore the procession set out, and brought by the soldiers
with them. St. John’s narrative implies that it was
brought to the spot attached to the cross; and such,
indeed, was the Roman custom; that as the person
is illustrated in the following
allusion of the same author ; ii.
73: πολλάκις δὲ καὶ διὰ σταυροῦ
πετέσθαι, μήτε δὲ πολὺ τῆς γῆς ἀπέ-
χοντα, μήτε αὖ ταπεινὸν σφόδρα.
As to the position of the se.
veral crosses—St. John tells us
merely that the malefactors were
upon either hand, and Jesus in
the midst. From what is said,
however, of the breaking of the
legs of the two former, before the
soldiers came to Jesus, I should
conjecture that the crosses of the
two thieves both looked to the
west, and that of Jesus over
against, and between them, to
the east. Such a position, too,
is best adapted to account for
what passed between them ; and
for the fact that the inscription
on the cross of our Lord was —
legible from the city ; in which
case the cross must have fronted
the city.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 247
condemned to be crucified carried his own cross, so
did the cross bear the declaration of his crime ἃ,
Among the martyrs of Vienna’, Attalus was led
about the amphitheatre, preceded by a board with
the inscription in Latin, This is Attalus the Christian.
It is probable, then, that Pilate was getting the title
ready while the soldiers and the rest of the band were
employed in the mockery of Jesus. As to the conver-
sation between himself and the authorities of the Jews
respecting the change of its terms, that might not take
place until after it had been set up and some time ex-
posed to the public view; or, what is perhaps more
probable, it was prior even to the arrival at Calvary.
VI. Directly after, and probably before the arrival
of the third hour, because not likely to be later than
the attachment of Christ to the cross, if it was not ra-
ther going on at the same time with that, the division
of the outer garment of Jesus, who had been divested
of his clothing before his crucifixion, into four parts,
one for each of the soldiers; and the casting of lots for ©
his inner vesture: Psalm xxii. 18. Upon this point St.
Chrysostom observes τ, ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ἐν Παλαιστίνη δύο ῥάκη
συμβάλλοντες οὕτως ὑφαίνουσι τὰ ἱμάτια, δηλῶν ὁ ᾿Ιωάννης
ὅτι τοιοῦτος ἦν O χιτωνίσκος, φησὶν, ἐκ τῶν ἄνωθεν ὑφαν-
τός.
VII. After this, the sitting down to guard the bo-
dies of those upon the crosses, that they might not be
taken down before their death: with which event we
may date the arrival of the third hour of the day.
For St. Mark is express that it was at this hour that
Jesus was crucified ; and if the procession had left the
Pretorium soon after the second hour of the day,
(which is manifestly possible,) then Calvary being
u Suetonius, Caius, 32. Domitian, το. Dio, liv. 3. v Eusebius, H. E. v. 1.
162. B. οὖν Operum viii. 505. C. D. in Johann. Homilia 85. 2. Cf. Theophylact,
i. 752. D. in Joh. xix.
R 4
248 Dissertation Forty-second.
near to the city, and probably not three quarters
of a Roman mile from the Preetorium itself, though
we made every allowance for the slowness of the pro-
cession, and for the proceedings by the way; still the
crosses might all be set up with the sufferers attached
to them, before the third hour was actually come.
The circumstances belonging to the second period
are only the following in general.
I. The remarks of the multitude present, as speci-
fied by St. Luke: the various contumelies heaped upon
Jesus, still hanging alive from the cross, partly by the
passers by, according to St. Matthew and St. Mark—
partly by the members of the Sanhedrim, according to
the first three Evangelists, in whose words, as reported
by St. Matthew, there is an unintentional coincidence
with Psalm xxii. 8—partly by the soldiers who were
keeping watch over him, coming to him, according to
St. Luke, and offering him their posca to drink; (a
circumstance which implies the arrival of their usual
dinner hour, the fifth hour of the day ;) with an allu-
sion to the inscription on the cross—and partly by one
of the malefactors, crucified along with him; which
last circumstance St. Matthew and St. Mark express in
general terms; but St. Luke, with a stricter attention
to historical precision, distinctly attributes to the right
person; specifying the rebuke which he received from
his comrade, as well as what subsequently passed _be-
tween this penitent and believing thief and our Lord
himself. The sixth hour, or noon, was now at hand;
that is, the preceding transactions had extended
through almost the space of three hours, when I sup- -
pose,
II. The affecting incident, related solely by St. John,
and regarding our Lord’s commendation of his mother
to his care, (both having hitherto been present, whe-
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 249
ther they both continued to be so still or not,) may
most fitly be considered to have taken place*. The
next fact, recorded in Ais Gospel, was one which a
comparison with the rest proves to have followed the
ninth hour, though but by a little; and the preterna-
tural darkness, interposed between the sixth hour and
the ninth, may justly be regarded as incompatible with
the occurrence of such a transaction after the former
hour, but before the latter ; or while that darkness was
still in being. |
The only circumstance specified during the third
period is the darkness in question—resolvable into no
physical cause of known operation ; for the moon was
not yet at the full, though considerably past the change;
commencing according to St. Luke, a little before or a
little after the sixth hour, at the time when, on the
Passover day, the evening sacrifice would begin to be
got ready in the temple: and the effect of which was
to obscure the sun, which before must have been shin-
ing brightly, and to cover the face of the land until
the ninth hour; when all the three Evangelists make
it to cease.
The circumstances belonging to the fourth period
were these: I. With the time of the arrival of the
ninth hour, and the dispersion of the darkness, when
the offering of the Paschal sacrifices was ready to
begin, Jesus uttered the first verse of the twenty-se-
cond Psalm, as recorded by St. Matthew and St.
Mark.
* I think it probable that
St. John immediately conducted
the mother of our Lord home,
as soon as she had been com-
mended to him; and that this
is the reason why the name of
the Virgin is not specified among
those of the other women who
were present at our Lord’s ex-
piration, and when he was taken
down from the cross, and com-
mitted to the grave: though it
appears that she was actually
present at the crucifixion, as
well as they.
250 Dissertation Forty-second.
II. After this, and with no sensible delay, he ex-
claimed, according to St. John, I thirst.
III. In consequence of this exclamation, the spunge
filled with vinegar, that is, with the posca of the sol-
diers present, was placed upon a wand or stick of
hyssop wood, the only method of bringing it into con-
tact with his mouth, and so offered to him*. This
fact, by which the twenty-first verse of the sixty-ninth
Psalm was fulfilled, related succinctly by St. Mat-
thew and by St. Mark, is given in detail by St.
John 7.
IV. When this was over, which would be a little
after the ninth hour, Jesus, knowing that whatever
had been predicted respecting his sufferings before his
death had now been accomplished, exclaimed, accord-
ing to St. John, τετέλεσται : and then, that the accom-
plishment of those things which had been predicted to
happen after his death might next begin, uttering a
- loud voice, according to St. Matthew and St. Mark—
and repeating the prayer also, Into thine hand I com-
mit my spirit, (Psalm xxxi. 5.) according to St. Luke
—and simply bowing the head, to denote the instant
extinction of life, according to St. John—all which
circumstances might follow upon each other in this
order—gave up the ghost, as all the accounts are
agreed, last of all.
It must be evident, therefore, that in this separation
* Plutarch, Cato Major, 1: πλὴν
εἴ ποτε διψήσας περιφλεγῶς ὄξος
+ It appears from this fact
that the prediction, “ they gave
y#rnoev—that is, some of this
SCA. ᾿
Apollonius, De Mirabilibus,
174: τὸ καλούμενον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ
...Tovs βουλομένους αὐτοῦ ὑδρεύε--
σθαι, σπόγγοις πρὸς ξύλοις δεδεμέ-
νοις λαμβάνειν.
me vinegar to drink,” was either
not fulfilled at all, or only in
part, by what happened pre-
viously to the like effect—only
so much of it as specified the
further circumstance, “ they
gave me gull to eat.”
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 251
of his soul from his body our Lord did not wait for
the natural progress of dissolution, but exerted his
Divine power, in anticipation of the effect : the reason
of which was the necessity of so timing his death,
that in all the circumstances, which took place after-
wards, the Scriptures might be fulfilled, as they had
been fulfilled before; that he might be taken down
from the cross and committed to the grave before sun-
set—without which, and if he was to rise again on the
Sunday, he could not, even according to the Jewish
computation of time, have been previously three days
and three nights in the earth ; that, when the soldiers
came to accelerate the deaths of the parties crucified,
they might find him dead already, and so offer no vio-
lence to his body, but what instead of infringing, was
rather the fulfilment of prophecy*: A bone of him
shall not be broken—and, They shall look upon me
whom they have pierced Y. Such is the observation
of Origen upon the timeliness of his death 2: καὶ τάχα
διὰ τοῦτο προλαβὼν ἐξελήλυθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος, ἵνα αὐτὸ
τηρήσῃ, καὶ μὴ καταχθῆ τὰ σκέλη, ὡς τὰ τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ σταυ-
Crucifixion though a painful was
still a lingering death; to which assertion the facts
referred to in the margin will supply cases in point + *.
ρωθέντων ληστῶν *.
* Cf. Eusebius, Demonstratio Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, iv.
Evangel. iii. vi. 108. ἢ: Cyprian,
De Idolorum Vanitate, 16: La-
ctantius, Divin. Institt. iv. 26.
394: Theophylact, i. 160. C. in
Matt. xxvii.
+ Carcere dicuntur clausi
sperare salutem: | Atque ali-
quis pendens in cruce vota fa-
cit. Ovid, De Ponto, i. vi. 37.
x Cf. Exod. xii. 46. Ps. xxxiv. 20.
Celsum, ii. 16. Operum i. 403. B.
194. Suetonius, Galba, 9.
35: ᾿Αλέξανδρος ὁ φιλόσοφος ἔδοξε
τὴν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ κατακεκρίσθαι᾽ καὶ
παραιτησάμενος, μόλις ἀπολελύσθαι
ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῦ σταυροῦ. True, this is
meant of a dream; but it is ἃ
dream supposed to be a repre-
sentation of what might have
happened.
Justin, xxii. 7: Adeo ut de
y Zech. xii. ro. Z Contra
a Vita Josephi, 75. Herodotus, Polymnia,
252 Dissertation Forty-second.
V. Simultaneously with the expiration of Christ,
the vail of the tabernacle, according to the first three
Evangelists, is rent in twain, (so simultaneously, that
it might be mentioned, as it is by St. Luke, even before
the mention of the expiration itself,) the earthquake
ensues—the rocks are rent—the graves are opened—
and the bodies of many holy men are resuscitated *—
though their entering into Jerusalem, and appearing
alive unto many, do not take place until after the re-
surrection of our Lord himself, who was the proper
Jirst-ruits of such as slept: all which circumstances,
though they may be implicitly alluded to in St. Luke,
are specified distinctly by St. Matthew only: the con-
fession of the centurion, in relating which both the
others agree with St.Luke,is extorted from him—and the
people who had come to the spectacle return, accord-
ing to St. Luke, with minds changed, and beating
their breasts, as under the consciousness of some great
sin.
summa cruce, veluti de tribu-
nali, in Poenorum scelera concio-
naretur. Photius, Codex 94: Iam-
blichi Dramaticum, 74. linet 2: in
this novel, the hero of the story
is attached to the cross, yet
taken down alive again. Quo-
niam ergo majorem sustinent.
cruciatum, qui non percutiuntur
post fixionem, sed vivunt cum
plurimo cruciatu, aliquando au-
tem et tota nocte, et adhuc post
eam, tota die &c.: Origen, iii.928.
C: Comm. in Matt. Series, 140—
Miraculum enim erat, quoniam
post tres horas receptus est,
qui forte biduum victurus erat
in cruce, secundum consuetudi-
nem eorum, qui suspenduntur
quidem, non autem percutiun-
tur: Ibid. Ὁ. Anthologia, iii.
51. Lucilii evii: μακροτέρῳ orav-
ρῷ oravpovpevoy ἄλλον ἑαυτοῦ | ὁ
φθονερὸς Διοφῶν ἐγγὺς ἰδὼν ἐτάκη.
* Perhaps this opening of the
graves, and resuscitation of the
bodies which slept, being men-
tioned by St. Matthew alone,
are to be reckoned among the
number of his anticipations, and
are introduced here solely from
their connexion with the death
and resurrection of our Saviour;
and more particularly because
of the similarity of the cireum-
stances, under which both the
death and the resurrection took
place. There was an earthquake
at the time of this last event, as
well as that of the former, and
accompanied with similar ef-
fects.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 959
VI. The chief priests or the Sanhedrim, ignorant
perhaps as yet of the death of Jesus, (though that is
by no means a necessary supposition,) and desirous to
hasten it, as well as that of the thieves, prevail upon
Pilate to order their legs to be broken, that so they
might expire and be taken down for interment before
the sabbath should arrive. Josephus will shew that,
agreeably to the Divine mandate”, this would have
been done, under similar circumstances, before sunset
even upon a common day; and much more before
sunset on the eve of an high day*. The soldiers were
sent accordingly, and broke the legs of the thieves;
but finding that Jesus was already dead, one of them,
doubtless from a wanton impulse, pierced his side only;
which act was followed by a discharge of blood and
water, too great and too extraordinary to be accounted
for upon any natural principle; and therefore strictly
miraculous. For these particulars we are indebted
solely to St. John, who was consequently still an eye-
witness of all which passed +.
VII. About the same time, but after the soldiers
had been sent on their errand, and before the death
of the thieves, accelerated as it was by this additional
* Yet it is probable that this
particular usage of the Jewish
law was not always respected by
the Romans, in the infliction of
their punishment of crucifixion ;
and that in order to its being
enforced in the present instance,
a special application to Pilate
would be necessary, on the part
of the persons of the greatest
weight and influence among the
Jews at the time. Generally
speaking, it was part of the pu-
nishment of crucifixion that the
civ. 51:
body should be left exposed to
rot on the cross. See Artemi-
dorus, Oneirocritica, ii. 51. Also
διὰ τὸ πολλοὺς τρέφειν
οἰωνούς. Hence Horace, Non
pasces in cruce corvos. Episto-
larum i. xvi. 48.
¢ St. John might have re-
turned to the spot, so as to be
present at the remainder of these
transactions, as soon as the mi-
raculous darkness was over,
whether the Virgin did so or
not.
» Bell. Jud. iv. 5.2. Dent. xxi. 22, 23.
254 Dissertation Forty-second.
violence, Joseph of Arimathza, the rich man with
whom the Messiah was to make his grave in his
death °, intercedes with Pilate for leave to remove the
body of Jesus; and Pilate, having first ascertained
from the centurion the fact of his death however un-
usually sudden, gives him leave. Then, in conjunc-
tion with Nicodemus, who had provided grave-clothes *
and spices, according to the custom of the Jews, more
especially in the funeral solemnities of persons of con-
sequence, he takes down the body from the cross, and
hastily wrapping it up in the linen clothes along with
the spices, because the Parasceue was begun, and the
sabbath was fast approaching, as hastily commits it to
the nearest grave, which was his own, and in a garden
of his own; where certain of our Lord’s female dis-
ciples, who had come up with him from Galilee, and
had hitherto been about his cross, also saw it depo-
sited. These particulars are more or less fully re-
corded by each of the Evangelists ; and as I shall have
occasion to refer to them again hereafter, I touch upon
them only summarily at present. The time which
they would take up may be defined in general as com-
prehended between the ninth hour of the day and sun-
set—after the one but before the other—and perhaps
equidistant from both. And here the events of the
fourth division, and with that of the fourteenth of
* Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, the Gentiles. The same writer
i. 14. observes, ἐπεὶ καὶ of ἀποθνή-
σκοντες ἐσχισμένοις ἐνειλοῦνται ῥά-
κεσιν, ὡς καὶ τὰ βρέφη, καὶ χαμαὶ
τίθενται: whence it appears that
the custom of wrapping the bo-
dies of the dead in grave-clothes,
ὀθόνια or ἐντάφια, Was Common in
his time both to the Jews and
informs us, Oneirocritica, 11. 3.
that the clothes so used for that
purpose, and in which the bo-
dies of the dead were carried to
be buried, were alway λευκὰ, or
white; as those in which the
living mourned for them were
always black.
¢ Isaiah liii. 0.
Proceedings of Thursday and Friday in Passion-week. 255
Nisan, would properly expire. I shall still prolong
this Dissertation, however, so far as to consider the
next period in the Gospel history ; which will extend
from sunset on the fourteenth to sunset on the fifteenth
of the same month, throughout the whole of the Jew-
ish sabbath; and from thence to the morning of the
sixteenth, when our Saviour rose again from the dead.
It contains only one fact, concerning which there
can be little difficulty ; insomuch as it is recorded by
St. Matthew alone, xxvii. 62—the end: following un-
doubtedly after the burial, but preceding the resurrec-
tion, of Christ, and by him expressly assigned to the
ἐπαύριον, the day after the Preparation; that is, to the
sabbath; the fifteenth of Nisan itself. This fact was
the application of the Sanhedrim to Pilate for permis-
sion to set a guard over the door of the sepulchre ; and
the appointment of that guard accordingly. The times
of those two incidents might possibly be different: the
application might be made in the course of the sab-
bath, or just when the sabbath was about to expire—
but the setting of the guard we may conclude for va-
rious reasons could not be until after that.
First, because it is not probable that the Sanhedrim
themselves would take such a step during the conti-
nuance of the sabbath; for that would have been to
break the sabbath. Secondly, in the day-time on the
_ the sabbath, and for so public a place as Calvary, there
would be no occasion to set a guard over the grave at
all. Thirdly, they had not applied for the same per-
mission, nor therefore thought it necessary to appoint
_ such a guard, on the eve of the sabbath; they must,
consequently, have supposed that the grave would be
sufficiently protected, during the sabbath, by the sanc-
tity of the sabbath itself. Fourthly, the proposed end
of setting a guard would be answered by stationing it
256 Dissertation Forty-second.
at the sepulchre on the eve of the first day of the week:
for the night of that eve was the first and the only time
when any attempt at the removal of the body of Christ
by his disciples, for such a purpose as they supposed,
could be expected to take place. Fifthly, the design
of the measure being expressly to defeat any clandes-
tine attempt on the part of the followers of our Lord, —
- it was natural that the step should be taken with as
much secrecy as possible, especially with respect to
them: and it is certain that the women, who visited
the sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection, were
ignorant at the time of the existence of the watch about
it: but this could searcely have been the case, had the
guard been posted at an earlier period than the night
preceding. And this point being thus established, we
may proceed to consider the accounts of the resurrec-
tion.
DISSERTATION XLIII.
On the Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection.
THE Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection,
if we include under the term not merely the principal
fact, but also the several personal manifestations of
Jesus Christ to his disciples, by which it was subse-
quently confirmed, comprises a period of forty days;
viz. between the resurrection and the ascension. The
difficulties, however, which belong to this part of our
subject, concern almost exclusively the particulars of a
single day, the day of the resurrection itself; the six-
teenth of Nisan with the Jews, the seventh of: the
Julian April and Easter-day with us.
The events of this day admit of no other distinct
classification, except into the several visits to the tomb
and the several manifestations of Christ, which took
place upon it; the appearances of the angels, as part
of the circumstances belonging to the history of the
visits, being consequently included under that: and
among these events the testimony of all the Evan-
gelists establishes the following relation at least—that
the first manifestation, recorded by any, was posterior
to the /ast visit, recorded by any. The question con-
cerning the visits, therefore, will properly require ‘to
be considered before that which concerns the manifest-
ations. :
Now with regard to these visits, each of the Evan-
gelists records one—and two of them, St. Luke and
St. John, record two; the second, however, in each of
these instances, so connected with the first, that it
arose, and is described to have arisen, out of the report
of those who had made the first. The principal diffi-
VOL. III. 5.
958 Dissertation Forty-third.
culty, therefore, still concerns the first ; and if that can
be satisfactorily adjusted, every other, which concerns
merely the second, may be easily accounted for.
If then we compare the several narratives with re-
spect to these in particular; there is so much circum-
stantial agreement between the one visit recorded by
St. Matthew, and the ove visit recorded by St. Mark,
as to leave no doubt that they must be in the main the
same: and again, if we compare the account of this
one visit, in either of them, with the account of the
first visit in St.John; as Mary of Magdala was cer-
tainly a party in all the three, all the three must so
far have been the same. But if we compare the same
account with the history of the first visit in St. Luke,
there is no longer any such appearance of agreement
between them 85. would authorize us to pronounce
them the same; but on the contrary, so many symp-
toms of disagreement as render it much more probable
that they were distinct. This will be seen more clearly
by the help of the following considerations.
Each of these three Evangelists concurs in ascrib-
ing the visit to the Holy sepulchre to certain of our
Lord’s female disciples; and each concurs in ascribing
the motive of the visit to the natural and pious desire
of completing his funeral obsequies; which the exi-
gency of the time had prevented from being completed
on the evening of the crucifixion. With a prospective
view both to the motive, and also to the fact, of such
a visit, they all, among other particulars connected
with the account of our Lord’s last moments, specify
the presence of certain of these his disciples about his
cross, first at his expiration, and subsequently when he
was taken down to be buried. And this view appears
so much the more distinctly, because, in mentioning
these women by name, they particularize at that time
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 259
none but those, whom they represent afterwards as
joining in the visits to the tomb.
Now our Lord’s expiration, as we saw, took place
about the ninth hour, or three in the afternoon; when
the Parasceue had begun, and the arrival of the
sabbath was scarcely three hours distant. The nature
of the Parasceue was such as to partake in some re-
spect of the sanctity of the sabbath, or to be an antici-
pation of the sabbath itself. The testimony of Jose-
phus, it is true, which demonstrated this of it in general,
restricted it’s sanctity in particular to an immunity from
civil business; and, if our Lord was actually alive
at the ninth hour, it is evident that neither his body,
nor the bodies of the thieves, who did not expire until
some time later, could be taken down for interment
except during the Parasceue itself. The sanctity of
the period, therefore, must be limited to such immuni-
ties as Josephus mentioned, and certainly was not so
great as to interfere with a business of this kind: or
though it had been, still it must have been dispensed
with in the present instance, out of deference to the
special reasons of the case.
Yet this very necessity would be an additional motive
why the ceremony of our Lord’s interment should be
performed with all possible dispatch. It was the
urgency of the time which determined the choice of
his sepulchre. In the place where Jesus was crucified
there was a garden—and in the garden a sepulchre—
there, then, they laid the body of Jesus, because of the
Preparation of the Jews; for the sepulchre was nigh
at hand. The body of Christ was deposited in that
garden and in that grave, not merely because they
belonged to Joseph, but because they were the nearest
that could be found, and there was no time to take it else- .
where; the sabbath would have arrived in the midst of
S82
260 Dissertation Forty-third.
the attempt. The funeral ceremonies of the Jews, duly
completed, would have taken up a considerable time;
and the period of the Parasceue itself, which was all
that remained for this purpose, had been prematurely
abbreviated by the circumstances which preceded the
removal of the body from the cross—the application
to Pilate—the examination of the centurion—and the
other particulars on record: which must needs have
occupied time, where there was little or none to be
spared.
It is clear, then, that our Lord’s interment was
hasty ; and, consequently, that, his funeral solemnities
were very inadequately performed. He had predicted,
only six days before, that the unction of his body by
Mary, the sister of Lazarus, would be the sole em-
balment which it should receive for the grave. The
mixture brought by Nicodemus had perhaps not been
duly prepared; and was certainly not duly applied ;
for it was not the customary method of embalming a
body at this period, when liquid perfumes were so
generally used, merely to wrap up aromata or spices.
along with it in grave-clothes *. Besides which,
* Mr. Harmer, (vol. ii. 156, ch.
vi. Obs. lx.) is of opinion, in op-
position to Dr. Ward, that the
Jewish method of embalming
dead bodies, resembled the Egyp-
tian both in other respects, and in
the circumstance of disembowel-
ling, previousto interment. There
is no doubt that the due per-
formance of this last part of the
process, if it really was wont to
take place, would add consider-
ably to the length of the whole.
I think, however, that in this
opinion Mr. Harmer is mis-
taken.
No Jew, it may be presumed,
would have ventured to open a
dead body, or to take out any
part of it. The Egyptians, Pal-
myrenes, and others, might dis-
embowel, as Mr. H. contends;
but what they did, is no argu-
ment of what the Jews would
do in the like case.
As the object of embalment
in general, and of the disem-
bowelling part in particular, was
to obviate the process of natural
decay ; Martha would not have
said of a body embalmed and
disembowelled, on the fourth
day after the death, ἤδη ὄζει:
John xi. 39. Nor could it be
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 261
Nicodemus, as hitherto a concealed disciple of Jesus
Christ, compared with his regular followers, especially
with those who had always ministered to him of their
substance before, might be regarded as a kind of
stranger. The duty of embalming the dead body of
- Christ belonged rather to such as had ministered to its
wants while alive.
But even the piety of these disciples themselves
under the circumstances of the case, in the absence of
the necessary preparations, and in the momentary ex-
pectation of the sabbath, would have no other alterna-
tive, except to defer the last honours to his memory
until the first convenient opportunity—which could
not be earlier than the beginning of the first day of the
week. At that time, however, both the sense of duty
and the fervour of attachment would urge them to the
speedy resumption of offices, which the emergency of
the occasion had compelled them to suspend until
then; and the dead body having been, as it was, a day
and two nights in the grave, the necessity of the case
itself would dictate the expediency of no further de-
lay.
considered an _ extraordinary
thing that the body of our Lord,
so embalmed and disembowelled,
in three days and three nights
should not have been long enough
in the grave to see corruption.
The custom of the Jews from
the remotest antiquity appears
to have been to bury their dead
with, or in, sweet spices: but
there is not the least allusion in
the Old Testament to the fur-
ther accompaniment of disem-
bowelling.
A pious mind revolts at the
idea of the body of our Lord
being subjected to any such
treatment: nor does it soften
its repugnance to the idea of
such treatment, that it was only
intended, and not executed, in
his instance.
The practice of the Romans
at this time, a practice very
likely to be common throughout
their dominions, if they did not
themselves borrow it from the
East, was only to anoint the
bodies of their dead with liquid
perfumes, and to burn odours
of various kinds along with
them : though it is true that the
Romans, generally speaking,
burnt the same bodies on fune-
ral piles; which the Jews did
not,
s3
262 Dissertation Forty-third.
That they had conceived the design of revisiting the
tomb, and completing the process of the embalment, so
early as the eve of the sabbath, though they might |
defer its execution until the morning after the sab-
bath; appears not only from the mention of their
being present at the interment of our Lord in general,
but more especially from the stress which is laid on
their observing or taking notice of the tomb, and how
the body was deposited in it. This would not be so
distinctly specified, except to prepare us for their sub-
sequent visit, |
The sabbath did not expire until sunset on Saturday
in Passion-week: and some of the number, having
waited too long in the garden (which is an argument
of the lateness of the burial) the day before, had even
then their spices to procure. The process of em-
balment itself would have taken up time; and had it
been attempted on the night of the sabbath, it must
have been performed in the dark. The watch too,
which had been planted at the grave either in the
course of the morning, or directly after the arrival of
the evening, of Saturday, until it was disturbed by the
apparition of the angel, would have effectually pre-
vented any access to the sepulchre; and the Provi-
dence of God, in order to the fulfilment of prophecy,
which required that the body of Christ should continue
untouched in the grave three days and nights, would
doubtless take care that none, whether friend or ene-
my, should prematurely interfere with its repose. And
this was one natural consequence of our Lord’s dying
upon the Friday. Had not that been the case, the
visit of the women, though with the most pious inten-
tion, would probably have been made on the follow-
ing morning, and not upon the morning but one after.
We need not be surprised, therefore, that our Lord’s
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 263
female disciples, though they might have formed the
design of embalming his body as early as the evening
of Friday, should yet not be able to execute their pur-
pose before the morning of the Sunday at the earliest.
Of the setting of the guard meanwhile, and of the
sealing up the entrance of the sepulchre, (which, though
they did not interfere with the conception, would ne-
cessarily have prevented the accomplishment, of their
purpose,) if they took place at the time we have conjec-
tured, they could not be aware beforehand; and it
would seem they were still in ignorance even on the
morning of their visit.
Now, upon the assumption of a design like this,
conceived by the women, who attended our Lord’s
last moments on the evening of Friday, but not ex-
ecuted, nor capable of being executed, before an early
hour on the morning of Sunday, the harmony of the
course of events upon that morning, relating to the
visits to the tomb, must be constructed.
For first, the number of these women was considera-
ble; and indeed the resort of females to the several
feasts, especially to the Passover and the Scenopegia,
though voluntary on their part, was almost as great
as that of the men. Besides those who are mentioned
by name, many others are alluded to in general terms,
as they who had attended upon and ministered to our
Lord in Galilee, and had come up with him on this oc-
casion to Jerusalem. All these, or most of them, must
have concurred in forming the resolution in question.
Secondly, these women, as believers in Jesus and
followers of Jesus in common, either would be known
to each other, or would not. If they were not known
to each other, though they might all have concurred ~
in forming the same design, it cannot be supposed that
they would all act in concert to execute it. Hence,
S 4
264 Dissertation Forty-third.
though all might have gone to the tomb, and all have
finally been assembled at the tomb on the morning in
question, they might set out at different times, and
would set out in different parties; and consequently
they might arrive at different times, as they would in
different parties. But if they were known to each
other, though they might have agreed to act in con-
cert to execute, as well as concurred in conceiving, the
design of their visit, still if some lodged apart from
the rest, or they belonged to different Paschal compa-
nies, their agreement would extend no further than an
appointment to meet at the tomb by a certain hour on
the morning specified: in which case, some might be
earlier in arriving than others; though, if nothing
had occurred to prevent their waiting for the rest, all
might have met there at last.
Thirdly, there are only ¢wo parties of women of
which any evidence is found in the Gospel accounts ;
one of which we may call the party of Salome, and
the other the party of Johanna. The former is
the party in St. Matthew or in St. Mark; the latter
is the party in St. Luke: for though St. Matthew and
St. Mark mention others in common with St. Luke,
and St. Luke mentions others in common with St.
Matthew and St. Mark, they only mention Salome, and
he only mentions Johanna. These two parties were
distinct—and either, as consisting of persons unknown
to each other, acted entirely independently throughout,
or, if they consisted of persons known to each other,
they set out at different times and from different places ;
and so arrived at the sepulchre at different times. This
conclusion we may confirm as follows : Ἶ
I. It is a kind of presumptive argument in its fa-
vour, that the party of Salome appears to have con-
sisted, and is certainly specified as consisting, of three
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 265
individuals only; Salome, Mary of Magdala, and Mary
the mother of James and Joses: the party of Johanna
is not specified by name; but in general terms, and
under the description above given, it is said to have
included many; which I think must mean more than
three. Among these, if we compare Luke viii. 2, 3,
Susanna would probably be one.
II. It is a similar presumptive argument, that Sa-
lome and the second Mary; the former a person of
some consequence and the mother of ἔσο of the Apo-
stles, the latter a near relation of the Virgin’s, the mo-
ther also of one Apostle and the wife of Cleopas;
would probably lodge not with the rest of the disciples,
but with the Eleven; who seem, like our Saviour, to
have lodged somewhere by themselves.
III. According to St. Luke, the party of Johanna
got their spices ready on the day of the Preparation,
as soon as they returned from the garden, after the
burial but before the sabbath: and rested, as he ex-
presses it, subsequently during the sabbath, according
to the commandment: whereas it is expressly affirmed
by St. Mark, xvi. 1, that the party of Salome did not
get their’s ready until after the sabbath; that is,
until a night and a day later: διαγενομένου τοῦ σαββά-
TOV εν 0% ἡγόρασαν ἀρώματα, ἵνα ἐλθοῦσαι adeiiywow αὐτόν.
This must be sufficient to prove that the two parties
were so far distinct, and acted independently of each
other. There would be time enough, even after sunset
on the sabbath, both to purchase and to prepare what
would not be wanted for use before the next morning.
- But had not this party been a different one from the
other, and detained longer than that in the garden on
the evening of Friday, they too, we may reasonably
infer, would have bought and prepared their spices be-
fore the sabbath. This very circumstance of a sepa-
266 Dissertation Forty-third.
rate provision of such articles in each case suggests the
same distinction. Had the parties been one and the
same, a single provision would have sufficed for both.
It is not clear, indeed, whether the party of Johanna
had not ἐ 617 spices procured before the interment of
the body: there is no assertion that they were bought,
but only that they were prepared, before the sabbath ;
and this would be a distinct thing from that. The
spices, even after they had been provided, would still
require a certain mixture and preparation, the most
important part of the process, before they could be
ready for use. The party of Salome, however, had not
merely to prepare, but also to purchase their spices be-
fore the sabbath.
If these considerations, then, should render it pro-
bable a priori that the parties in question were dis-
tinct, and consequently, though they might act in con-
cert with respect to the common end in view, yet
might set out at different junctures of time, or from
different places, and consequently arrive at the tomb
in a different order of succession; the argument ὦ pos-
tertori, or the comparison of particulars, as recorded
to have transpired upon the actual arrival of each, will
confirm this conclusion; and place it beyond a ques-
tion that the visit of the one party was a distinct thing
from the visit of the other.
I. If we contrast the account of the visit in St. Mat-
thew with the relation of the visit in St. Luke; when
the women arrived at the tomb, according to the for-
mer, they found the stone removed from the entrance
—an angel sitting upon it—and the watch still present
about the sepulchre—but in a state of great alarm and
consternation ; according to the latter, they found the
stone removed indeed, but no one visible either in or
about the tomb—and the entrance in particular entirely
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 267
unoccupied and free. If the visits were one and the
same, these different accounts would not be consistent :
but if the visits themselves were distinct, each of them
may be true. The first party of the women being
gone, the stone would continue removed from the en-
trance as before; but the angel might cease to be visi-
ble: and the watch also might be departed to make their
report of what had happened.
Besides which, the visit in St. Matthew was preceded
by a great earthquake ; which accompanied the descent
of the angel: a particular altogether so remarkable,
that had it formed one of the circumstances connected
with the visit in St. Luke, we can scarcely suppose that
he would have omitted it. For the descent of the an-
gel was preliminary to the rolling away of the stone;
without which there could have been no access to the
sepulchre. Nor can it be objected here that St. Mark
also omits the same circumstance: for St. Mark’s ac-
count, as I shall shew by and by, is critically supple-
mentary of St. Matthew’s.
Again, according to St. Matthew’s account, it does
not distinctly appear that the parties even entered the
tomb: every thing which he relates seems to have taken
place outside of the tomb: but according to St. Luke’s,
the party must have entered the tomb; and whatsoever
he records to have happened unto them, must have
happened within the tomb.
II. If we compare St. Mark’s account with St. Luke’s;
according to the former, upon entering the tomb, and
before they had time to examine whether the body was
still to be seen or not, the women perceived an angel,
in a sitting posture and on their right: according to
St. Luke, upon entering the tomb they saw no one
present ; and before the appearance of any angel they
had time to examine and to discover that the body was
9608 Dissertation Forty-third.
~
missing; and to feel all the effects of the surprise and
the perplexity produced by the discovery: and after
this, when the angels appeared to them, they appeared
both together, or at once; and not in a sitting, but in
a standing position. These circumstances also cannot
be consistent as parts of the same account, but may
be very compatible with each other if they belonged to
distinct occasions.
III. If we compare St. Matthew and St. Mark in
conjunction with St. Luke, then, though there had been
no other appearance of discrepancy between them, yet
the language ascribed to the angels respectively in each
is so different, as to prove that the visions themselves,
and the occasions out of which they arose, must have
been distinct. There is so much disparity both in the
particular expressions and in the general drift and pur-
port of the two addresses, that to suppose them the
same would be utterly incongruous and inexplicable.
But if they were delivered at different times, and on
distinct occasions, then either may be shewn to be so
consistent with the special circumstances of its own oc-
casion, that this very consistency shall be one of the
strongest arguments to prove the reality of each; and
yet its entire independence upon the other. For first,
to admit for argument’s sake the difference of the two
occasions; since one of the visits in that case must
have preceded the other, we may take it for granted
that if it was either, it was the visit in St. Matthew or
in St. Mark, not the visit in St. Luke. The earthquake
and the descent of the angel, before which the stone
was not removed from the entrance, preceded that visit ;
and from the place which they occupy in the narrative,
preceded it but by a little. They might have taken
place in the interval between the setting out of the
party and the time of their arrival at the tomb.
‘Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 269
I know it is usual to give the principal verbs, ἐγένετο
and ἀπεκύλισεν, ἃ Meaning at variance with this con-
clusion; and making them signify not what took
place at the time, but what had taken place some time
before. This construction, however, does violence to
the proper signification of the indefinite tense; and be-
sides is irreconcilable with the final end of the dispen-
sation itself, combined as it is with the historical cir-
cumstances of the context. The mission of the angels
must have had for its object one of two purposes, or
both—either to minister to the resurrection of our Lord
himself—or to facilitate the access of the women to the
sepulchre, as the first link necessary to the integrity of
the chain of the evidence, by which the fact of the re-
surrection was about to be confirmed—or, what is
equally possible, to do both. On either of these sup-
positions the descent of the angel would nearly coincide
with the time of the setting out of the women; for our
Lord rose soon after the dawn of day, and they set out
at the dawn of day. Much more, if it was designed
for the latter of the abovementioned purposes. To that
- end two things would be requisite, each of them effected
by the presence or the agency of the angels; one to in-
timidate the guard, the other to remove the stone. The
guard would have resisted the admission of the women,
though the stone had created no difficulty; and yet
the stone by itself was greater than they could re-
move. .
Having accomplished these purposes, the angel sat
down on the stone at the entrance of the cave; and
was found there, still seated, when the women arrived.
The guard, too, must have continued in their original
position ; being so far overcome by their fear itself as
to have lost the power of motion: nor did they recover
themselves, or venture to quit their situation, until the
270 Dissertation Forty-third.
women were departed again, and the angel also had
ceased to be visible without the tomb. For it is not
said that they repaired to the city and made their re-
port of what had happened, until the women were on
their return with the message sent to the Apostles.
These considerations ought to be decisive proofs that,
if every visit to the tomb was not the same, the visit
recorded by St. Matthew must have been the earliest of
any.
Now the appearance of the angel was as likely to in-
timidate the women as the soldiers; the former being
just as unprepared for it as the latter: and such was
the effect which it produced at first upon them. The
language of the angel, then, is very naturally, and yet
very clearly, addressed first of all to their fears: μὴ
φοβεῖσθε vuets—Do not ye be afraid: a very distinct inti-
mation that there were others present and others afraid
as well as they ; who, considering for what purpose they
were there, had good reason to be afraid. But not so
they—who had come with the pious and praiseworthy
intent of doing honour to the crucified body of Jesus.
Having thus shewn them that he was acquainted
with their motive in visiting the tomb, he adds, in the
next place, (what was clearly to be expected in refer-
ence to such a purpose,) that Jesus, whom they sought,
was not to be found there; for he was risen. Next,
in direct confirmation of the truth of this assertion, he
appeals to the sensible testimony of the place where
his body had been deposited—in which place they
themselves had seen it laid; and which was now
empty. Lastly, he promises a still clearer proof of its
truth, by a personal manifestation of Jesus himself, as
soon as they returned into Galilee; whither he should
precede them, as they had attended him from thence.
All these particulars are naturally connected together ;
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 27k
agreeable to the circumstances of the case; and such
altogether as might be expected, a prior, in an address
to the first party of our Saviour’s friends and disciples,
who might visit his tomb on the morning of the resur-
rection for any such purpose as is specified in the Gos-
pel narrative. Let us examine the circumstances of the
similar address in St. Luke.
It must strike every one who compares them to-
gether, that as the address in St Matthew is character-
ized by a tone of encouragement, gentleness, and con-
descension, so the address in St. Luke is distinguished
by a tone of severity and reproof. It begins with an
expostulation: Why seek ye the living, or rather the
living one, among the dead? and the tone of this ex-
postulation is maintained throughout; for it proceeds
to remind them that when Jesus was still in Galilee,
and long before he came to Jerusalem, he had predicted
all this; both his death, and at a certain time after his
death answering to the present, his resurrection; which
was virtually to reproach either their dulness of appre-
hension, or their want of faith; their dulness, if they
had not understood nor remembered his words—their
want of faith, if understanding and remembering them
both, they had yet come on such an errand as this,
which was to expect to find him dead. Nothing so
severe as this is to be met with in St. Matthew: nor
in fact have the two addresses any thing in common,
except merely the particulars interposed between these
two members, the repeated assurance that Jesus was
not there, but risen: which however is so natural and
appropriate, under any circumstances of distinction be-
sides, that it can prove nothing of the identity of the
two occasions.
This difference of language and deportment on the
part of the angels, would be easily accounted for, if, after
Φ Dissertation Forty-third.
the assurance, received a little while before, the same wo-
men, or any part of them, had shortly afterwards return-
ed to the tomb. Now though it is certain, or at least
highly probable, that Mary Magdalene in particular
could not have been one of the number, it is by no means
impossible that the other two, as they were going away,
might have fallen in with the party of Johanna, coming
to the sepulchre; and having told them what had hap-
pened to themselves, instead of persuading them to turn
back, might have been induced to go on with them ; and
in order to satisfy the curiosity which so wonderful
a report would naturally excite in their companions, _
(a report which, when they first heard it, they might
not know how to believe,) to come again to the
tomb.
I propose this, however, only as one conjecture out
of many; for I consider it just as probable that the
two parties were originally, and continued all the time,
distinct. If, indeed, though really distinct they acted
on any preconcerted plan, they might not arrive at
once, nor yet, probably, much after each other: espe-
pecially as all the Evangelists agree that each of the
parties, who paid the first visit to the sepulchre, set
out at the earliest possible hour in the morning. The
transactions at the tomb, with the party of Salome,
were not such as to occupy many minutes; so that,
however soon a second party might have arrived after
them, they might find every thing over, and their pre-
decessors gone away, before their arrival. St. Mark’s
assertion that the women, on quitting the sepulchre,
οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπον, Which would seem to imply that they
said nothing to any one, would also seem to imply that
their companions themselves did not come in their
way: for this silence must surely be understood of
strangers as such, and not of those who belonged to
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 918
their own society. From these latter they would never
have concealed the knowledge of what they had seen
—especially when they were going with a message to
the Apostles themselves: and the reason assigned for
their silence, ἐφοβοῦντο yyap—it is manifest would be
partly removed by falling in with persons whom they
knew.
I think, then, they did not fall in with any such;
and still the angels might address a second party, ar-
riving for the same purpose as the first, but under cir-
cumstances somewhat distinct, in a manner not quite
the same as before. Nor is their language, after all,
80 severe as to convey more than a grave expostula-
tion, and a mild rebuke. There was this difference
in the situation of the parties addressed, which might
produce a corresponding difference in the terms of the
address; that the first party, having seen the angel
before they had any the least evidence of the resur-
rection, were bereft of their presence of mind from the
first; they had neither time nor capacity for summon-
ing their recollection to their aid, and remembering
the predictions of Christ: but the second party having
entered the tomb without seeing any one, and examined
the interior without finding any thing there, had leisure
and opportunity to have reasoned, from existing ap-
pearances, to the fact of the resurrection of Christ—
confirming the conclusion by the recollection of his
own assurances—before they were alarmed by the
sudden manifestation of the angels: which yet it is
evident they did not do; and for this dulness, or this
unbelief, they might incur an express rebuke.
The only material objection against the supposition
in question is this; that, in recounting the names of
those who made a report to the Apostles of what
had transpired at the tomb, St. Luke specifies Mary of
VOL. III. T
974. Dissertation Forty-third.
Magdala, and Mary the mother of James, as well as
Johanna: whence it might be concluded that all were
present at the preceding transaction; or that all made the
visit in conjunction. Nor would I oppose to this dif-
ficulty, what would be only to silence one objection
by starting another, how incompatible it must be with
the account of St. Matthew or of St. Mark, who make
their party to consist of Salome and of the two Maries
merely, to include in it Johanna and many others also.
It is more to the purpose to observe that the objection
will be totally removed, if, as we admitted was not
impossible, the party of Salome, after arriving first
and visiting the tomb first, as related by St. Matthew
and by St. Mark, fell in upon their return with the
party of Johanna; and accompanied them to the se-
pulchre again.
But though this solution of the difficulty should not
be embraced, still it may be contended that St. Luke
has ended his account of what took place at the tomb,
down to the mention of the return of the women, and
of the communication of their report to the Apostles,
before he specifies the names of any: and when he
specifies the names of any, he mentions them only as
the names of the parties who made the report; and
nothing further: he does not affirm that they were
the parties who had visited the tomb, and seen the
vision of the angels, as related by himself just before.
On the contrary, neither when preparing to record
that visit—nor earlier, when alluding to the presence
and cooperation of the same parties about the cross
and at the burial of Jesus—does he mention the
names of any. Considering the singular accuracy
of this Evangelist, even.in the slightest particulars,
we may look upon this silence as not without de-
sign; and ‘the reason of it may be that out of this
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 275
number, which did not, as I suppose, include either
Salome or the two Maries, the only person likely to
be known to his readers, because the only one to
whom an allusion had occurred in his Gospel before,
was Johanna, the wife of Chuzas the procurator of
Herod.
If, then, he intended to specify by name those
women alone, who concurred in making a like report
of what they had seen or heard at the tomb, to others
who had not been thither, there may be an omission in
this part of his narrative—but there is no inconsistency
in it, as compared with the accounts of the rest. The
women of the first party made a report to the Apostles,
as well as those of the second: the substance of
each report was exactly the same; and it might truly
be said in reference to both parties, because they had
each precisely a similar communication to make, that
they related these things to the Apostles, and to all
the rest. What they related is thus stated by one of
the number to whom it was related, Cleopas, in his
_ discourse with our Lord himself: ἀλλὰ καὶ “γυναῖκές
τινες ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξέστησαν ἡμᾶς, “γενόμεναι OpOpia ἐπὶ τὸ
μνημεῖον" καὶ μὴ εὑροῦσαι τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ, ἦλθον λέγουσαι
καὶ ὀπτασίαν ἀγγέλων ἑωρακέναι, ot λέγουσιν αὐτὸν ζῆν.
Luke xxiv. 22, 23. It is indifferent to which of the
reports this summary of particulars is supposed to
refer; for it is a correct description of either.
On the question, however, of the supposed omission
generally, the consideration, of which we have already,
in so many instances, experienced the benefit, viz. regard
and attention to the supplementary character of the later
Gospels, will be equally useful to us now. On this prin-
ciple, the account of St. Matthew must be taken along
with that of St. Mark, the account of both with St.
Luke’s, and the account of all the three with St. John’s,
T 2
276 Dissertation Forty-third.
if each is to be duly appreciated by itself. There
are omissions in St. Matthew, supplied by St. Mark;
there are omissions in both, supplied by St. Luke;
there are omissions in all the three, supplied by St.
John: and what each has related in particular, and
why he has related it, cannot be rightly understood,
without knowing also what others had related, and
why they had related it, before him. To examine,
therefore, each of the accounts respectively; in the
course of doing which we shall find an opportunity of
introducing and discussing the question respecting the
personal manifestations of Christ, as well as despatch
what remains of the present in reference to the visits
to the tomb.
I. We will begin with comparing St. Matthew’s ac-
count, as the first written, with St. Mark’s, as the next
in order; the material fact in both, viz. the visit of
the party of Salome, being assumed as one and the
same.
If the later Evangelist were giving an account of
the same transaction as the former, with the know-
ledge of what he had recorded, as well as of what he
had omitted—and supposing that both the accounts
would ever after go along in conjunction; he could
have no inducement except to say as little as possible
upon the part recorded, and to dwell almost exclu-
sively upon the part omitted: nor would any ill con-
sequence result from it, if he did. Now it is certain
that St. Mark is altogether silent on the fact of the
earthquake—the descent of the angel—and the re-
moval of the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre ;
all specified by St. Matthew. He speaks only in the
first place of the perplexity of the women, while they
were still on their way to the tomb, produced by this
very cause, the supposed obstruction of the entrance
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 277
to it: and in the second, of the unexpected discovery
which they made, upon a nearer approach, that the
obstruction was removed already.
These were natural circumstances, yet they had
been omitted by St. Matthew; and in specifying them
now, to such as were previously acquainted with the
narrative of St. Matthew, the account of St. Mark only
the more clearly exhibits the final end of the seasonable
and providential dispensation recorded by him, designed
to facilitate the access to the tomb: but unto such as
were not acquainted with the narrative of St. Matthew,
or did not carry that along with St. Mark’s, this last
would create nothing but difficulty ; it would appear as
inconsistent with itself, as with the nature of things;
supposing not merely an effect without a cause—the
removal of the stone, with no visible means of its
removal—though a disproportionate effect to any but
an adequate cause; for the stone, he observes, was
exceeding large—but such an effect as the reader of
his Gospel in particular could in nowise have been pre-
pared for. Speaking of the burial on the Friday, he
distinctly mentioned the closing up of the mouth of the
cave; and speaking of the visit early on the morning
of the Sunday, he describes it expressly as open; yet
he has interposed no explanation to shew how it came
to be so.
To say nothing of the presence of the guard—which
also is omitted to be noticed in St. Mark—I have al-
ready observed that there was no direct evidence in
St. Matthew’s account that the women went into the
tomb; and yet there is indirect that they did so:
ἐξελθοῦσαι ταχὺ ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, XXViii. 8, proves this.
They could not have come out of the tomb, if they had
never previously gone zzfo it. Compare also Mark
xvi. 8, where it is certain that the women must have
T 3
278 Dissertation Forty-third.
come out of the tomb; and yet the language employed
is the same.
It is clear, then, by implication, that the women in
St. Matthew must have entered the tomb; and conse-
quently, if any thing transpired while they were within
it, it is equally clear that St. Matthew has omitted to
mention it. The point of time, at which they would
enter the tomb, was either during or just after, but
not before, the address of the angel, whom they found
sitting outside the tomb, and who spoke to them first
in that situation. And this might well be: for, among
other things which he then’ said to them, he invited
them (verse 6) to come and see the place where the
Lord lay. In order to do this, they must needs go
into the tomb; and in all probability, being so com-
manded, they would go into the tomb. Accordingly,
as before observed, St. Matthew supposes them directly
afterwards to quit, or come out of, the tomb; saying no-
thing of what had happened within. If ought then had
occurred there, beyond the mere inspection of where
the body of Christ had lien, there would be a clear
omission in his narrative. Let us see, therefore, whe-
ther St. Mark does any thing to supply it.
As St. Matthew makes every thing take place with-
out the tomb, so does St. Mark make every thing take
place within the tomb. Upon entering in, the women,
says he, found a young man sitting on their right
hand; that is, as the topography of the Holy sepulchre
probably would demonstrate, near the site of what had
been the grave of Christ. This angel in St. Mark, if
his account is supplementary to St. Matthew’s, or, if it
is equally true with that, whether supplementary to it
or not, must clearly be a second angel, or a different
one from the angel discovered outside at first. Laying
then the two accounts together, we possess in them
279
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection.
both in conjunction the evidence of two angels being
concerned in the present transaction ; which is a critical
circumstance; for it will prove that, with respect to this
fact at least, St.Matthew and St.Mark, instead of being
at variance, are exactly consistent, with St. Luke or St.
John; and by the distinct angel whose presence they
each of them specify individually, both together equiva-
lent to the two which appear simultaneously in St. Luke
and St. John, they are tantamount to either *.
The appearance of this angel is said to have asto-
nished the women, just for the same reason as before ;
and perhaps more naturally ; for, after seeing one angel
without already, they were probably less prepared than
before to see another so soon after within. His lan-
guage also, like that of the former, is consequently
addressed to their fears; and alludes to the state of
their feelings in the same general terms as before. He
too, as well as the former, affirms the resurrection of
Christ ; but he does not, like him, invite them to come
and see the place where the body had lain; but, what
is the strongest proof that all this was passing within
the tomb, he points to it as something before their
eyes: ide, ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν av’tov—See, here is the
place where they laid him. If after this, he sends the
same message to the disciples, conveying the same as-
surance that Jesus should be seen personally in Gali-
lee, as before ; still it is in language somewhat different,
such as might be the repetition of a common message
by a common party in the communication of it; and,
* Celsus, apud Origenem, v.
. \ ‘ 4
52: Operum i. 617. D: καὶ μὴν καὶ
\ \ > ΄- a , » »
πρὸς τὸν αὐτοῦ τοῦδε τάφον ἐλθεῖν
» ς ‘A - « ‘A ’ \
ἄγγελον οἱ μὲν ἕνα οἱ δὲ δύο, τοὺς
ἀποκρινομένους ταῖς γυναιξὶν ὅτι ἀνέ-
στη. That Celsus meant to urge
this as an objection appears from
cap. 56. Ibid. 621. A. Speaking
of the Evangelists in the plural
number, where he talks of those
who mention one angel, he means
of course Matthew and Mark ;
where, of those who mention
two, he means Luke and John.
T 4
280 Dissertation Forty-third.
with the addition of a very observable particular omit-
ted in the former instance, the express mention of the
name of Peter. It is not to be supposed that either
of the ministering spirits employed on this occasion
came of their own accord; nor, if they were expressly
sent, that they were not commissioned for a definite pur-
pose; in the attainment or execution of which both
might be expected to take an equal part.
On this question, however, we may consider it by no
means improbable that St. Matthew’s usual conciseness
must be strictly taken into account. Suppose the wo-
men, as invited by the first angel, to have entered the
tomb after verse 6. in his narrative, the substance of
verse 7. will be part of the address which afterwards
took place within it, and will be capable of a literal
harmony with Mark xvi.7. The account, even in this
case, would be regular; exhibiting an omission indeed,
but no transposition. Nor is it any material objection
that the command in question is ascribed to the first
angel, whereas it must in reality have proceeded from
the second. It is still the same command—and a com-
mand which proceeds from an angel—to do so and so,
and to expect such and such an effect; which is all
that was proposed by recording the command itself.
It must now then be sufficiently probable that St.
Mark’s account of the visit to the tomb is designedly
supplementary to St. Matthew’s; and in a part of the
latter, where there was an observable omission. The
particulars of what transpired within the sepulchre
were very deserving to be made known, especially by
a later Evangelist, if they had been passed over by an
earlier; since there would thereby be placed upon record
the testimony of two angels instead of one: and yet they
were so nearly akin to the particulars which had trans-
pired without, that an Evangelist, who had minutely
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection.
281
related these, might very well dispense with the fur-
ther narration of those.
There is but one circumstance in which St. Mark
may appear to differ from St. Matthew, any otherwise
than as a supplementary might differ from a more
partial account; and that is in reference to the time of
the visit.
This time the former defines by ἀνατείλαν-
Tos τοῦ ἡλίου ; the latter by τῆ éribwoxovon—where the
ellipsis is not of ἡμέρᾳ, but of apa *—els μίαν σαββά-
tov t. St.John, speaking of the same time, describes
* Eusebius, (SS. Deperdito-
rum Vat. Coll. 1. 64. D.) Que-
stiones ad Marinum: ὁ μὲν yap
εὐαγγελιστὴς Ματθαῖος ‘EBpaids
γλώττῃ παρέδωκε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον' 6
δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλήνων φωνὴν pera-
βαλὼν αὐτὸ, τὴν ἐπιφώσκουσαν ὥραν
εἰς τὴν κυριακὴν ἡμέραν ὀψὲ σαββά-
T@V προσειπεν.
+ The first part of this verse
down to σαββάτων is perhaps im-
properly translated in the author-
ized version. It is an obvious ob-
jection tothisversion that it makes
the first σαββάτων denote the sab-
bath, and the second the week;
instead of supposing both to
denote the same thing. Nor can
the adverb ὀψὲ, as some com-
mentators would have it, be cor-
rectly rendered after ; which
would make it a preposition e-
quivalent to μετά ; since its pro-
per signification, according to its
nature as an adverb of time, is
simply that of late. In this
sense too its natural construc-
tion is with the genitive. The
words ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων, τῇ ἐπι-
φωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων, ought
to be rendered, Now late in the
week—at the hour of dawn a-
gainst the first day of the week—
where if there was any ambi-
guity in saying Late in the week,
it is sufficiently cleared up and
explained by what is added, At
the hour of dawn, against the first
day of the week. I do not in-
deed deny that ὀψὲ can never be
construed in the sense of μετὰ, or
after: but I maintain that it is
much more uniformly to be con-
strued in the sense of late. Nor
do I deny that σάββατα without
the article may sometimes stand
for the sabbath: but I contend
that it will stand under such
circumstances much more pro-
perly for the week. Cf. The-—
ophylact, i. 163. D. in Matt.
XXvilli: 262. Ὁ. in Marcum, xvi:
434. D. in Lucam, xviii: 758. C.
in Joh. xx.
The following examples of
the use of ὀψὲ sufficiently prove
what I have asserted about it: τῆς
ἡμέρας ὀψὲ 7 ἦν: Xenophon, Hell. ii.
i. 23—kal7 ἦ ὀψὲ ἤδη τῆς ἡμέρας: De
Venatione, vi. 2 5---οΟὀψὲ τῆς ἡμέρας
ναυμαχῆσαι: Thucydides, i Iv. 25:
cf. iv. 93—77s δ᾽ ὥρας ἐγίγνετο
ὀψέ: Dem. xxi. δ. τ οϑ----ἐξελαύνου-..
σιν ὀψέ ποτε τὰ πρόβατα τῆς ἡμέ-
pas: Aristotle, περὶ ζώων, 111. ΧΙ]. 3
-- αὕτη δ᾽ ὀθψὲ τῆς ὥρας ποτὲ | εἰσῆλ.-
θεν ἐπὶ κώθωνα πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα.
Atheneus, xiii. 45.1. 40—éweé τῆς
ὥρας οὔσης : Plutarch, Alexander,
16.Cicero, 4--ψὲ τῆς ἡμέρας: Dio,
282
Dissertation Forty-third.
it by σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης, which is to the same effect; for
σκοτία is properly the dusk or twilight of morning or
evening, and not the dark of the night.
St. Luke’s
designation for it is ὄρθρου βαθέος *—which implies the
same with St. Matthew’s and St. John’s.
On this point, however, St. Mark would not be more
at variance with St. Matthew than with himself; for
55 — Owe τῆς ἡλικίας ἥψατο παιδείας:
De Liberis Educandis, Operum
vi. 47---ὀψὲ τῆς ὥρας : Dionysius
Hal. Ant. Rom. viii. 85.1716. 3
—owe τοῦ μετοπώρου : Lucian, ii.
511. Toxaris, 4---ἀλλὰ ὀψὲ τῆς
ἡλικίας : AXlian, Varie Hist. ii. 23
—<owe dé more καὶ βραδὺ τῆς ἡλικίας:
Heliodorus, Aithiopica, ii. 29—
ὀψὲ τῆς ὥρας : Jos. Ant. Jud. xvi.
vil. 5. So πόῤῥω and πρωΐ : ἐκάθευ--
Sov μέχρι πόῤῥω THs ἡμέρας : XKeno-
phon, Hell. vii. ii. 19--πόῤῥω τῆς
ἡλικίας ὄντα: Theophrastus, De
Causis Plantarum, i. 21. 224. ad
princip.—npet τοῦ φθινοπώρου----
πρωὶ τοῦ ἦρος : Galen, Operum ix.
33. C. 64. B. Philostratus only,
Apollonius Tyan. iv. 6. 174. C:
ὀψὲ μυστηρίων : and vi. 5. 269. A:
ὀψὲ τούτων ; uses ὀψὲ in the sense
of after. Yet the same author,
Heroica, 675. D. and 697. B.
ὀψὲ τῶν Τρωϊκῶν, ὀψὲ τῆς μάχης,
uses it as in the former instances,
in the sense of late.
For the construction which
the ancient commentators put
upon the passage, vide the E-
pistle of Dionysius, bishop of
Alexandria, to Basilides, Rel.
Sacre, ii. 388. 5: and Eusebius,
Questiones ad Marinum, SS.
Dep. Vat. Coll. 1. 64. Questio ii.
where it will be found explained
as above. Suidas seems to have
had his eye on this last pas-
sage in Eusebius, where, quot-
ing from an ancient commenta-
tor (vide Σάββατον) he illustrates
the phrase ὀψὲ σαββάτων, by the
analogous ones of ὀψὲ τῆς ὥρας,
ὀψὲ τοῦ καιροῦ, and the like.
Jerome, Operum iv. parsi.173.
ad princip. Hedibiz ; observes,
Mihique videtur Evangelistam
Mattheum, qui Evangelium He-
braico sermone conscripsit, non
tam vespere dixisse,quam sero; et
eum qui interpretatus est, verbi
ambiguitate deceptum, non sero
interpretatum esse sed vespere :
which is a very gratuitous sup-
position, insomuch as the clas-
sical sense of ὀψὲ, the word em-
ployed in the translation for the
supposed Hebrew of sero, is it-
self not vespere but sero, and
consequently ὀψὲ was the fittest
term to be employed. Cf. Am-
brose i. 1537. A. in Lucam, lib.
x. §.151. Denique Grecus sero
dixit, hoc est ὀψὲ, &c.
* Philo Jud. i. 603. 5: De
Nominum Mutatione: καὶ ἡ ἡμέ-
ρα μέντοι προγελᾷ πρὸς βαθὺν ὄρ-
θρον, μέλλοντος ἀνίσχειν ἡλίου----Ἰ].
109. 27. De Mose: οἱ μὲν γὰρ
Ἑβραῖοι διὰ ξηρᾶς ἀτραποῦ περὶ βα-
θὺν ὄρθρον μετὰ γυναικῶν καὶ παί-
δων ἔτι κομιδῇ νηπίων περαιοῦνται.
What Philo calls βαθὺν ὄρθρον,
Exod. xiv. 24, is called the morn-
ing watch; that is, from three
to six.
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 285
in the same sentence just before he defines the same
period of time by λίαν zpwi. Now λίαν πρωΐ cannot
possibly mean a period of the day posterior to sunrise,
or even coincident with it: the first hour of the day,
which began throughout the year with the moment of
sunrise, would never be called λίαν zpwi—its usual
and its proper designation was simply πρωΐ. Thus
Josephus, De vita*, makes πρωΐ and περὶ πρώτην
ὧραν synonymous terms. The necessity of the case
then must imply that, by both these descriptions which
are explanatory of each other, the Evangelist means
the same point of time—a/fter the break or dawn of
day indeed, but before the sun was actually visible in
the horizon. The dawn of day itself may be called in
a certain sense the period of sunrise; because it is the
effect of the sun’s approach, within a certain distance,
to the horizon, whether he is yet visible there or not;
and precedes, by a stated interval of time, the moment
of his actual manifestation. ἽὝἭλιον yap ἐνταῦθα νοεῖν
ὀφείλομεν τὰς ὀρθρινὰς τοῦ ἡλίου αὐγάς" ἀφ᾽ οὗ “γὰρ ἡ ὀγδόη
ὥρα τῆς νυκτὸς ἐπιλάβηται, ἔκτοτε ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς μελλούσης
ἡμέρας, καὶ ἡ πρωΐα δοκεῖ ἐπιλαβέσθαι. The definition
of the time then means no more, than that the visit of
the women, early as it was, did not take place in the
night time, or before the actual dawn of day.
But λίαν πρωΐ may be understood of the time when
they first set out; and ἀνατείλαντος “τοῦ ἡλίου of the
time when they arrived at the sepulchre: between
which there might be as much as even an hour’s in-
terval. If our Lord and his Apostles, ever since their
arrival at Jerusalem, up to the night of Thursday,
when he kept his Passover in the city, had lodged in
Bethany, the rest of his disciples, especially those who
a 54. > Theophylact, i. 163. D. in Matth. xxviii.
9284 Dissertation Forty-third.
had accompanied him from Galilee, it is reasonable to
presume, had done the same. Consequently, though
on account of something which transpired this very
day they might afterwards be living in Jerusalem, yet
up to this day their home would still be Bethany ; and
from Bethany they would set out, on the morning of
Easter day, to pay the first visit to the tomb.
Now if a party had to proceed from Bethany, which
lay one English mile and an half to the east, as far as
Calvary, which lay at least one quarter of a mile to the
west, of Jerusalem, it is manifest that besides this dis-
tance the whole breadth of the city would have to be
traversed ; a breadth which would doubtless be consi-
derably increased by the windings and turnings of the
streets. The ground-plan of Jerusalem approximated to
a square or parallelogram, the four sides of which were
nearly of equal extent. We may infer this from the fact
that the number of square stades which it is said to
have contained is computed by Strabo¢ in general terms
at 60, while its periphery or circumference is stated by
Josephus at 33. If the sides of Jerusalem were each
eight stades in length, these two computations would
agree very well together; for 8 x 4 would be 32 for
the periphery of the outside walls, and 8 x 8 would be
64 for the superficial content *. The same conclusion
* It is true, the part called
Bezetha, or Cenopolis, (the new
city,) constituted an excrescence
upon the northern flank of the
city, which so far disturbed the
regularity of the rest of the fi-
gure. But this part was not
enclosed by the city walls before
the time of Herod Agrippa,
(B. v. iv. 2): and when Jose-
phus states that the whole cir-
cumference of the walls amount-
ed to thirty-three stades, I think
he does not intend this state-
ment of the additional part in
question ; but solely of the old
city wall before that: for he
tells us the outermost or third
wall, which included this, con-
tained ninety towers ; -but the
Ὁ xvi. 2. §. 3. 6. 358, 359.
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 285
follows from three other computations of the circum-
ference of the walls of Jerusalem, one, by the author of
the work ascribed to Aristeas, and two, which are cited
by Eusebius in his Preparatio Evangelica, one of them
from Timochares, a Greek historian, the other from a
writer whom Eusebius denominates the Schcenometres
of Syria’: the two former as much in excess, com-
pared with the truth, which is the estimation of Jose-
phus, as the latter is in defect; but all of them divisi-
ble, or nearly so, by four. The first of these puts it at
forty stades, the last at twenty-seven ; between which
the mean is very nearly thirty-three *.
The extent of Jerusalem, then, from east to west, in
old city wall, which did not in-
clude it, stxty; and the space
between every tower he esti-
mates at two hundred cubits.
On this principle the outermost
wall contained go 200, or
18,00c cubits; and the old wall,
60 X 200, or 12,000. If we re-
duce these cubits to stadia, at
the rate of 2000 cubits to five
stadia, the outermost wall must
have contained forty-five stadia,
but the old wall only thirty:
the former of which would great-
ly exceed the estimated extent
of thirty-three stades ; the latter
would square sufficiently exactly
with it. Besides which, when
Titus surrounded the city by a
wall of circumvallation, v. xii.
2, the direction which this took
is said to have been from the
᾿Ασσυρίων παρεμβολὴ, on the north
or north-west, to the lower ὅδ.
nopolis, in the first instance ;
and from thence, across the
brook Cedron, to the mount of
Olives on the north-east ; then
southward ; and afterwards west-
ward, until at last it came back
to the point at which it started
on the north. Now by the
lower Czenopolis or Bezetha I
know not what can be under-
stood except the part which bor-
dered on the deep ravine, si-
tuated between Antonia and it.
Besides, Titus was already in
possession of the outer wall,
and of Bezetha, (v. vii. 2, 3,
compared also with 11. xix. 4.)
when he drew this line around
the rest of the city. Now the
extent of this line was just
thirty-nine stadia ; a very pos-
sible case, if it had to enclose a
circuit of thirty-three. But on
this principle the circuit of the
city, independent of Bezetha,
must have been thirty-three sta-
dia.
* Hecatzus of Abdera (apud
Josephum, Contra Apionem, i.
22.) about B. C. 312, estimated
the extent of the walls of Jeru-
salem at fifty stades.
ἃ Josephus, Havercampii, vol. ii. Appendix, 113. ad calcem. Eusebius, Pre-
paratio, ix. 35, 36. 452. B—D.
286 Dissertation Forty-third.
other words the distance which would require to be
traversed in coming from Bethany to Calvary, besides
the mile and three quarters already specified, cannot
be computed at less than one mile more *. Consider-
ing, therefore, the many additional delays which might
occur by the way, I do not think that it would be pos-
sible for any party of persons to have accomplished the
journey, however expeditiously, in less than an hour’s
time: so that though the women had set out at day-
break, they would not arrive at the garden before sun-
rise: for at the equinox, or soon after it, day-break
* In the Epistle ascribed to Cy-
ril of Jerusalem, (Operum 305.)
and addressed to the emperor
Constantius, there is an account
of a remarkable phenomenon,
in the form of a cross, which
appeared in the heavens on Whit-
sunday, Nonis Malis, (May 7,)
at the third hour, or nine o’clock
in the morning; and extended
from the summit of mount Gol-
gotha, over a distance of fifteen
stades, to the mount of Olives.
Vide the same account in So-
erates, Hist. Eccles. ii. 28. 120.
D: and Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. iv.
v. 541: Julius Pollux,Chronicon,
338, 340: Nicephorus, ix. 32. So-
crates dates this phenomenon,
A.D. 350. or 351. Philostor-
gius, if he is rightly represented
by Photius, iii. 26. 490, sup-
poses this same phenomenon vi-
sible not only at Jerusalem, but
in Gaul to the contending armies
of Constantius and Magnentius
—at a time the date of which also
might be A. D. 351. The Fasti
Idatiani confirm Socrates by
dating the appearance in ques-
tion, In oriente, post Consulatum
Sergii et Nigriniani, A. D. 351:
though as to the day of the
}
month, they place it not, Nonis
Maiis, but iii. Kal. Februares,
January 30. I cite the fact
merely in illustration of the pre-
sent question. By the mount
of Olives I think we must un-
derstand its κατάβασις, or base—
between which and the walls of
Jerusalem: St. Luke tells us
there was a sabbath day’s jour-
ney’ interval, and Josephus
about five or six stades, which
amounts to the same thing.
From the top of mount Calvary,
then, to the foot of the mount
of Olives, there was in a straight
line, not less than fifteen stades’
interval; and from the foot of
mount Olivet to the village of
Bethany, as we learn from St.
John, there was not less than
ten. The whole distance, there-
fore, from the summit of Cal-
vary to the village of Bethany,
in a right line, was not less than
twenty-five stadia; which by
the road, especially if that lay
through or by Jerusalem, might
easily be increased to seven or
eight stades more; making in
all a distance of four Roman
miles at least in extent.
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 287
precedes sunrise by little more than the time in ques-
tion. Besides, our Lord, as we have seen already, was
certainly risen even when the first party arrived: but
St. Mark himself says that he rose at zpwi—and
though that should be understood of the dawn of
day, still the women could not have arrived until
sometime after. My opinion indeed is that the women
set out at dawn, and arrived about the time of
sunrise—and that our Lord rose just before the
latter period, at the time when the daily sacrifice, ac-
companied by the offering of the wave-sheaf, was be-
ginning in the temple; the descent of the angel—the
earthquake—and the removal of the stone—having
also been critically interposed.
II. It is hardly necessary, for the sake of the end
which we have now in view, to compare St. Luke either
with St.Matthew or with St.Mark. The whole of the
preceding discussion has been directed principally to
prove the distinctness of the visit recorded by him
from that which is recorded by them: in which case his
account must be clearly supplementary to their’s. 1
think it is plain that he even refers to their account,
or supposes their’s to go along with his own; for, xxiv.
2, he alludes to the stone as removed from the mouth
of the cave, though the fact of such removal was to
be collected only from the two former Evangelists.
From the narrative of St. Luke, there would be no
reason to suspect even the existence of such a stone.
No mention of its apposition occurred in the account
which he gave of the burial.
It is obvious however, that St. Matthew and St. Mark
each record only one visit, while St. Luke records two
visits ; the second of which, if not the first, is clearly a
distinct event from any thing in their accounts; and so
fara supplementary one. I shall say no more then upon
288 Dissertation Forty-third.
this point, except to observe that, if the visits were
really different, and that in St. Matthew or in St. Mark
was the first of the two, they would naturally select
that visit for record in particular, both on other accounts,
which might be mentioned, and especially because
upon ¢hat visit only was the message transmitted to
the Apostles, designed to prepare them for our Lord’s
personal manifestation in Galilee; on which subject
more will be said hereafter. Yet the second visit was
a memorable event as well as the first, and an important
fact in the general evidence of the resurrection, which
deserved not to be lost to the:\Christian world: and for
this reason, as having been passed over by his prede-
cessors, it came within the scope of St. Luke’s plan,
and might be made the subject of a distinct narra-
tion. :
III. St. John has related two visits to the tomb; the
first of which, as made at the same time with the visit
in St. Matthew and St. Mark, and by one among others
who was equally concerned in that, I see no reason
why we should not consider the same with it. The
second, as a visit which arose out of the report of the in-
dividual who had made the first, and as a visit ascribed
to Simon Peter in particular, I consider it equally pro-
bable, is the same with the second in St. Luke. The
circumstances of the two visits are perfectly consistent
with each other: the only difference between them is
that St. John enters more into particulars.
It is usual, indeed, to assume that Peter made a
double visit ; once with St. John, and again by himself.
But this double visit is not only unnecessary, but I
will venture to say impossible. There is no room for
any such visit except where St. John has placed it,
after the report of Mary Magdalene, but before any
manifestation of Christ. If it did not arise from that
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 9890
report, our Saviour must already have been seen, at
least by Mary; before it took place. But this is the
visit referred to by Cleopas, Luke xxvi. 24: and, as it
is there implied, when that visit took place our Lord
had as yet appeared unto nobody. Moreover the same
text speaks of the visit as made by more than one per-
son: it recognises, therefore, the presence of John along
with Peter—though, indeed, the absence of the name
of John, Luke xxiv. 12, would be no objection; for
there is a similar omission at xxii. 54, under precisely
the same circumstances.
In other respects, St. Luke’s visit and St. John’s are
substantially the same. The former by no means af-
firms that Peter did not go into the cave, as well as
stoop down to look into it: he merely affirms that he
did the one first; but he leaves it open to conjecture
that he might still do the other afterwards. And,
what is a critical circumstance, both the accounts spe-
cify the haste of the parties who made the visit; which,
as a common feature of resemblance between them,
proves the occasions to be the same. For this haste
was the natural effect of the first intelligence that the
grave of Christ had been found open, and the body, as
it was supposed, removed. It would not have occurred
on a second occasion, after these facts had been ascer-
tained by ocular testimony on a former.
St. John’s account, then, manifestly may be supple-
mentary to St. Luke’s: let us see, in the next place,
what purpose it serves with respect to St. Matthew’s
or St. Mark’s. |
Early in the morning on the first day of the week,
while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala, says he, ἔρ-
χεται, which may very well mean sets out to go, to the
tomb; and seeth the stone removed from the tomb.
There is no intimation in these words that she had yet
VOL. III. U
290 Dissertation Fi orty- third.
entered the tomb. She runneth, therefore, and cometh
to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus
loved; to make a report of this discovery. The lan-
guage of the original is descriptive of haste and sur-
prise; and leads to the same conclusion, that she
could not have stayed to enter the tomb, but, as soon
as she saw that the stone had been removed, she must
have run back directly, to tell Peter and John.
Now what would be the state of the case with re-
spect to this discovery? It would be such, that it must
needs be made without the necessity of approaching
close to the tomb, much less of entering into it. Our
Lord had been crucified on mount Calvary, that is,
upon elevated ground; and he had been buried hard
by where he was crucified, that is, upon elevated ground.
His sepulchre was hewn out of the rock, descending
with steps into an antechamber, below the surface of the
ground *. The mouth, the only part visible externally,
was a large orifice, covered by an equally large stone.
The women had accurately marked the site of the grave
on the Friday evening; and when the beams of the morn-
ing sun at that very moment were probably shining di-
rectly upon the tomb, the stone at its mouth might be
seen in the daytime a good way off. The approach to
the garden was necessarily up a rising ground; the gar-
den, and the rock which contained the sepulchre, lying
somewhere upon the top, or perhaps in the slope of the
hill. The women would approach it in front, where
* In Dr. Townson’s Observa-
tions on section i. of his Har-
mony of the Accounts of the
Resurrection, (vol. ii. 78. Lon-
don, 1810.) there is a ground
plan of the Holy sepulchre,
taken from Cotovicus and San-
dys; that is, of what has been
exhibited as the Holy sepulchre,
since the time of Constantine.
This also fronts to the east. In
other respects, however, the de-
scription which is given of it
does not appear to me to an-
swer to the idea of the place of
our Saviour’s burial, such as it
may be collected from the gos-
pel accounts.
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 291
they would command a full view of it. Hence, accord-
ing to the very correct expression of St. Mark, they had
only to lift up their eyes in order to distinguish the
sepulchre as they were coming towards it; and to per-
ceive, as we are told they did, that the stone had been
removed from the entrance.
It will be admitted that such a discovery would na-
turally strike them with surprise, and lead them to
conclude from the first impression that, if the stone
had been removed, the body must have been removed
also. It should be remembered, too, that the guard
would be still present when they arrived; they would
see the vacant mouth of the cave beset by strangers:
and laying this discovery along with the other, they
could scarcely fail to conclude that the body had been
removed, and that these men had been instrumental in
removing it: they had come upon them in the act of
so doing.
What then do we observe to take place? Mary
Magdalene, a single woman, the youngest, and there-
fore the most active, of the party, runneth imme-
diately, and cometh to Peter and John with a report
to this effect— They have taken away the body of the
Lord, and we know not where they have laid it.
These words prove two things; first, that she has
some particular persons in her eye when she says,
They have taken away the body of the Lord—such as
the guard might be; and secondly, that she was not
alone, she had not made the observation by herself;
there were others with her—if she says We know not
where they have laid it. Compare this language now,
with what follows at verse 13, when she was unques-
tionably by herself, and is repeating the same declara-
tion to the angels—They have taken away my Lord,
and J know not where they have laid him.
U2
292 Dissertation Forty-third.
There is then internal evidence in this passage that
Mary Magdalene had either, in the first tumult of sur-
prise and consternation, left Salome and the other
Mary of her own accord, or had been sent back ex-
pressly by them, to communicate the above tidings;
while they themselves went on to the tomb, intending,
perhaps, to wait there for her return. Either of these
suppositions will account for the sequel. But as to
conjecturing that all turned back in conjunction, or
that this report, ascribed to Mary, was the report
made by all in common after each of them had visited
and inspected the tomb; these are conjectures which
would involve us in the greatest perplexity, and hap-
pily are not necessary.
To admit, for argument’s sake, the latter. Mary of
Magdala, on this principle, must have seen and heard
the declarations of the angels, as well as her com-
panions. But had this been the case, could she have
said to the Apostles so soon afterwards, They have
taken away the body of the Lord, and we know not
where they have laid it? Are not these words spoken
under a sincere conviction that this was the truth ?
Does she not still labour under this conviction when
she returns to the tomb with Peter and John? Does.
she not remain behind, after they were gone, through
the same belief ? Does she not express the same con-
viction to the two angels directly after? Are not the
tears, which she is described as shedding, the tears of
a sincere grief, and the genuine tokens of a firm per-
suasion of the reality of her mistake ? Does she not
address our Lord himself, at first, like a person under
the same impression? Could she have seen and heard
the two angels once already, and not have known or
suspected who they were, when they appeared and
spoke to her a second time? It is morally impossible
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 298
that Mary of Magdala, had she been a party to the
preceding visit throughout, or even yet heard of
what had happened to her former companions, could
have acted thus strangely and inconsistently. The
female disciples of our Lord, to their honour be it
spoken, do not seem to have evinced from the first, the
same incredulity as the men. ‘They believed the as-
surance of the angels that he was risen: they recalled
to mind his own predictions in time past; and were
now convinced of their truth. They issued from the
tomb with great joy and gladness, as well as astonish-
ment; and they delivered an accurate report of what
they had seen and heard, that so the rest, if they would,
might believe as well as they.
The way, then, to harmonize the account of St.John
with the accounts of the other three, is that which
we have adopted: supposing ‘that both parties of wo-
men had visited, and left the sepulchre, before Mary
returned with Peter and John. This might easily
happen if the second party arrived soon after the first;
and the circumstance that both parties set out very
nearly at the same time in the morning, renders it
extremely probable that, though they might not
come together, yet they would come within a little
while of each other: and Mary had to go back to
Bethany, and to return from Bethany again; which
would take up two or three hours’ time at least. It
is morally certain that she in particular could have
had no communication with her former companions, or
with those of Johanna’s party, before she had the
vision of the angels herself; she must have been still
ignorant of all which had passed, even when Jesus
himself stood before her. Nor ought it to be objected
that the visit of Peter, according to St. Luke, arose out
of the report of the women whose names he mentions.
U 3
294 Dissertation Forty-third.
It arose out of their report, but not necessarily out of
their report in common. St. Luke’s conciseness in this
part of his narrative is an answer to the whole objec-
tion. He asserts in general terms that the women
made a certain report to the Apostles; and in equally
general terms that, whatever it was, the Apostles did
not believe it; only that Peter got up, and ran to the
tomb, to have ocular testimony of what had happened:
in all which he is confirmed by St.John. But he does
not descend into particulars, nor ascribe the visit to
the single report of Mary Magdalene; for this obvious
reason, that he had mentioned no previous visit of
Mary’s. What, then, could he have said of any report
which arose out of it, except as identified with the
common report of the rest? Yet by mentioning Mary
Magdalene before Johanna, as the author of the report,
he may perhaps assert by implication that the report
came first from her.
In fact, the Gospel of St. John has here one special
object in view, and that, entirely a supplementary ob-
ject; viz. to give an account of our Lord’s personal
manifestation to Mary Magdalene, memorable, as being
the first manifestation which was made to any, yet
only summarily mentioned by St. Mark, and _ totally
omitted by St. Luke. This manifestation ensued on
Mary’s second visit to the tomb, along with himself
and Peter ; and his own visit and Peter’s arose out of
Mary’s report upon her first. The accomplishment of
such a design required him to begin with the account
of this first visit, without which he could not proceed
to the second; yet as neither Salome nor the other
Mary had any concern in what followed, or were
parties in the second visit, he confines his account of
the first to the single case of Mary Magdalene in par-
ticular. Beginning with the relation of her visit, he
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 295
passes in due course to the circumstances of his own and
Peter’s: and when they two were both gone away, he
completes his original purpose by the account of the
manifestation to Mary itself.
But this brings us at once to the consideration of
these manifestations ; on which we may enter with so
much the more alacrity, that every difficulty in regard
to the preceding question, which concerned the visits to
the tomb, has now I trust been satisfactorily removed.
There is much less of difficulty concerning this fur-
ther question ; and what there is, is due almost entirely
to a single cause, the apparent incongruity between
St. Matthew’s account of the personal manifestations
of our Lord. after his resurrection, and the history of
the same things by the rest. Of the eight or ten
manifestations in all, which stand upon record, he has
specified only two: but these, as I shall shew, were
closely related to each other: and if the first of them,
as I hope also to make it appear, was much later than
Easter-day, even this incongruity between the several
accounts will be completely and convincingly done
away.
First, then, it is certain, from the testimony of St.
Mark, that the first manifestation of our Lord, as again
alive after his death and burial, was made to Mary of
Magdala. If this was the manifestation minutely re-
lated by St. John, it was made to Mary when she was by
herself, after her return to the sepulchre and the depar-
ture of Peter and John. It was a distinct thing, there-
fore, from the first of the manifestations recorded by
St. Matthew; which was made to a number of women
in conjunction, or at least not to Mary of Magdala by
herself. The same conclusion is implicitly confirmed
-by St. Mark. Speaking of the visit to the tomb, he
mentioned the presence of the other two besides Mary
U 4
296 Dissertation Forty-third.
Magdalene; speaking of the first manifestation, di-
rectly afterwards, he specifies the presence of Mary
alone. ‘There is no reason to be assigned for this dis-
tinction except that, though the other two might be
parties in the visit, Mary only was a witness of the
manifestation.
The narrative of St. Mark, as far as the close of
the visit, accompanies St. Matthew’s throughout; and
had so remarkable an event, as the personal reappear-
ance of Jesus Christ to the individuals who made the
visit, taken place immediately upon their quitting the
tomb, it is morally improbable that he would not have
noticed it. It must have formed a part of the history of
the visit; and by far the most important part too.
Besides which, the very end which he proposed in his
account of the message of the angels, repeating the
assurance that Jesus should be seen in Galilee, pre-
paratory to the actual manifestation which St.Matthew
records to have taken place there, required an account
of the message of our Saviour also, had both mes-
sages been sent on the same day. The form of his
narrative, in speaking of the appearance to Mary,
shews that appearance to have had no connection with
the preceding visit; to have been, what it was in
reality, an independent and a later account.
‘Our Lord sent a message at the time of the appear-
ance, Matt. xxviii. 10; and he sent a message also at
the time of the appearance, John xx.17. If these two
appearances were the same, the messages must have
been the same. Yet what is there in common not
merely in the terms, but even in substance, between
them? The other circumstances also are quite dif-
ferent: when Jesus appeared to Mary, he appeared
at first in another form; and was not recognised until
some time after: when he appeared to the women in
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 297
St. Matthew, he was recognised from the first. To
Mary he appeared in the garden, and close by the
sepulchre—to the women, it is certain that he could
not have appeared in the garden, or near the sepulchre
—for they had left both before his manifestation. To
Mary he became visible close by her—to the women,
at some distance off. Mary, on recognising him, might
have fallen down at his feet, as the other women are
said to have done—but Mary could not have em-
braced his feet, as they embraced; for she was for-
bidden, doubtless when preparing to do so: μή μου
ἅπτου: with this reason assigned—that he was not yet
ascended ; the time of his final departure from the
earth was not come; and until then, he would be fre-
- quently visible unto his disciples, and frequently among
them still.
We must give up then the authority of St. John, if
the manifestation, recorded at large by him, and al-
luded to in brief by St. Mark, as made to Mary Magda-
lene, was the manifestation recorded by St. Matthew, as
made to the women who visited the sepulchre. These
women might have had such a manifestation; but it is
clear that either it was a distinct manifestation from
this in St. John, or that Mary Magdalene in particular
could not have been one who witnessed it. And this con-
clusion is of great importance; for if it was a distinct
manifestation from this, it was not the jirst which
took place on Easter-day; and if it was not the first
which so took place, it could not have happened when
the women were Jeaving the sepulchre. Nor is this
all: for if it was not the first manifestation on Easter-
day, there is no reason to suppose that it could have
taken place on Easter-day at all.
Besides the manifestation to Mary, there are three
others on record as made in the course of this day;
298 Dissertation Forty-third.
and these three so connected together, that unless the
manifestation in St. Matthew happened before them
all, that is, either before the manifestation to Mary or
directly after it, it could not have happened on the
same day with the rest.
That it could not have been prior to the manifesta-
tion to Mary is proved by the testimony of St. Mark:
that it was not the same with it is proved by the
reasons urged to that effect above: that it was not
immediately posterior to it is not less certain from the
absurdity of a contrary supposition. For this could
not be the case unless Mary of Magdala, after the
appearance to herself, had fallen in with the other
women; and along with them seen another appear-
ance of Christ. But these women were gone long
before she returned to the tomb; so that she could
not have fallen in with them, especially as they were
coming away from the tomb: and they had delivered
their report to the Apostles of what had transpired at
the tomb, before Mary made known what had subse-
quently occurred to herself. |
Besides, though we were to suppose it possible that,
after the personal manifestation of our Saviour to her
in particular, she might rejoin her companions before
the return of any of them to the Apostles; still the
rule, by which the appearances of Jesus on Easter-day
were very observably regulated, renders it presump-
tively certain that no second appearance to the same
parties was to be expected so soon after the first. A
personal manifestation of Christ alive again to those
who had known him before his death was demonstra-
tive proof of his resurrection. This irresistible evi-
dence was not all at once vouchsafed; nor would it
perhaps have been proper that it should be. The
minor or subordinate evidence was first to produce its
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 299
effect. The personal inspection of the tomb, and the
testimony of the angels, were the only media of con-
viction for a time. These were submitted to the
women; and through them to the rest of the dis-
ciples: and some interval was necessary to ascertain
their proper effect, before the sensible evidence of
appearances of Christ in person was to be resort-
ed to. Accordingly, even the first such manifesta-
tion, the manifestation to Mary, took place, as we
shall see by and by, comparatively late in the morn-
ing; and the appearances, which came after it, still
later in the course of the same day. Even this per-
sonal manifestation, though the first of its kind, was
made but to one witness; the next, only to two wit-
nesses; and the last or latest of all only, to the whole
body of the Apostles in conjunction. Is it credible
then, that so early as the very first visit to the tomb
a manifestation would take place to a party of women
collectively ? |
It is clear from Luke xxiv. 22-24. that the two dis-
ciples who, in the course of this morning, visited Em-
maus were not ignorant of the visits made to the se-
pulchre, nor of the report of the women who had
made them; but they were ignorant of any personal
reappearance of our Saviour alive, either to them, or
to any one else. Yet Cleopas, one of the two, was the
husband of Mary, the mother of James ; and this
Mary, as all the first three Evangelists attest, was one
who visited the sepulchre; and if any manifestation of
Christ followed upon that visit, was one who witnessed
this manifestation. Is it possible, then, that Cleopas
could not be aware of this fact, as well as of the other,
if his wife had been equally a partner in both? Nor
can it be said that he derived his acquaintance with
what passed at the tomb from the return and report
300 Dissertation Forty-third.
of Johanna’s party; to which there is no proof that
any manifestation was vouchsafed. The party of Sa-
lome returned before the party of Johanna; and it
would be absurd indeed to suppose Cleopas acquainted
with the result of the visit of the latter, yet ignorant
of the result of the visit of the former. Besides he
was aware that a visit of Peter’s arose out of that re-
sult; and we have shewn already that the visit of
Peter arose out of the report of Salome’s party, and
not out of that of Johanna’s; he was aware, therefore,
of the report of Salome’s party, before he set out: but
he was not aware of any appearance of Christ: he was
not aware then, that Christ had yet appeared to that
party. We may consequently take it for granted, that
when they made their report Christ had not appeared
unto them. If so, he could not have appeared to them
on their way back from the tomb.
The appearance to these two disciples is the very
first upon record in St. Luke, and the second in
St. Mark; the next which is specified in both being
an appearance to the Eleven as such. It is just to
infer from this, that the appearance to the two dis-
ciples was either the first, or the next to the_first,
in the course of this same day; and the language of
St. Mark supports and confirms this conclusion. For
as he places the appearance to Mary at the head of
all, so he places the appearance to the two disciples
the next in order to that; applying the note of time
πρῶτον to the former, and that of μετὰ ταῦτα to the
latter. Reasonable it is to infer that he is re-
citing distinct, successive, manifestations, each in its
proper order. The earliest manifestations of our Sa-
viour were doubtless the most interesting, and perhaps
the most memorable. Had the appearance to the
women in St. Matthew been of this number, it is to
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 901
be presumed that St. Mark would have noticed it ac-
cordingly. He specifies an appearance to one witness ;
and then an appearance to two witnesses: would he
have omitted an appearance to at least three witnesses,
if any such came between the two ?
The final end which St. Matthew proposed in his
- account of the resurrection renders it necessary to sup-
pose that the two manifestations, recorded by him,
were intimately connected together; and each of them
posterior to Easter-day. That final end may be ascer-
tained as follows.
At the time of the first manifestation a message was
sent to the Apostles, commanding them to return into
Galilee; with a promise that there they should see the
Lord. At the time of the second manifestation they
were accordingly got back into Galilee; and our Lord,
as he had promised, was seen by them there. Laying
these two facts together, no reasonable person can
doubt that the Apostles must have left Jerusalem in
obedience to that command ; and repaired into Galilee
for the sake of that manifestation. ‘The narrative it-
self implies as much: for after mentioning an inter-
mediate particular, which had nothing to do either
with the message or with the manifestation, it pro-
ceeds, And the Eleven disciples went into Galilee; to
the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. I infer,
then, that the express design of the first manifestation
was to send ¢his message; and the express design of
the message was to command /fzs return: and the
express design of the return was to witness this second
manifestation on a particular mountain in Galilee. It
is to record this single demonstrative proof of the re-
surrection of Christ, that St. Matthew’s narrative is
directed throughout: and it begins to prepare the
reader for it long before it takes place. The pre-
302 Dissertation Forty-third.
diction of our Lord, xxvi. 32, on the way from the |
supper chamber to the garden, first raised the expecta-
tion of it: the prediction of the angels, on the morning
of the resurrection, xxviii. 7, revived and reinforced the
promise of it: the command, sent by our Lord himself,
xxviii. 10, brought it still nearer to its accomplish-
ment: and the actual manifestation at last, xxviii. 16--
the end, confirmed and fulfilled the whole.
All these steps were manifestly so many links in the
same chain; by which the beginning, and the middle,
and the end of this one transaction were connected
together ; every step down'to the final result being
preliminary to another. Yet they are particulars ex-
clusively confined to St. Matthew; or (what I consider
almost the same thing, and among the strongest proofs
of the unity of design and plan in these two Gospels)
they are partially recorded only by St. Mark besides.
The manifestation in question was doubtless the most
solemn and most public of any which ever took place:
for it was made according to an express appointment
of our Lord himself; at a time, and on a locality, of
his own fixing; in a country which had been the prin-
cipal scene of his ministry; and if we may advance a
reasonable conjecture, to an assembly of spectators,
who must have been collected for the purpose, and
embraced perhaps the entire body of believers in Gali-
lee. For I make no doubt that this was the very
manifestation spoken of by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 6, as
made to more than jive hundred brethren at once.
Five hundred persons could never be present at the
same time and in the same place, so as simultaneously
to witness an appearance of Christ, except by appoint-
ment; and no manifestation of Christ was ever made
by appointment, as far as we know of, except this.
This manifestation in St.Matthew, then, and the other
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 303
in St. Paul, so far agree together. Besides which, five
hundred believers could not have been got together in
any place at once, between the resurrection and the day
of Pentecost, except in Galilee: it will be admitted at
least that, even before the day of Pentecost, our Lord
might have had five hundred disciples in Galilee ; but
it is by no means certain that he might have had so
many in Jerusalem; or in Judza. The number of
names, who were living together in the former place, at
a time posterior to this event, was only one hundred and
twenty. Besides, as Galilee had been almost the ex-
clusive scene of our Lord’s ministry while he was still
alive, it was to be expected, ὦ priori, that it would be
made the scene of some peculiar and distinct manifes-
tation of him after his resurrection; and that those
who had believed in him there, as in their Messiah,
before he suffered, should have the means and oppor-
tunity vouchsafed to them of believing in him still,
after he was risen. St. Matthew’s manifestation and
St. Paul’s, if they were both the same, do admirably
agree to this natural presumption, as well as illustrate
and explain each other; the former as decidedly made
by appointment in Galilee, and the latter as equally
probably made to what may be considered the whole
body of believers in that country.
That others were present at it besides the Apostles
is implied even by Matt. xxviii. 17: for those who
doubted upon this occasion could not be any of the
Eleven. Now among these independent witnesses of
the personal existence of Christ after his death and
burial, that is, of his resurrection, the greater part,
according to St. Paul, were alive at the time of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians, twenty-five years
after the event: and when St. Matthew’s Gospel was
written, fourteen or fifteen years earlier, they might
304 Dissertation Forty-third.
every one of them be so. With reason, then, has he >
confined his account of the sensible proofs of the resur-
rection of Christ to this single manifestation, made to
so many others besides the Apostles; the witnesses of
which, at tiie time when he wrote, composed an inte-
gral part of the Hebrew church; and by whose testi-
mony the fact was still capable of being confirmed
long after the Apostles had either quitted Judza, to
preach Christianity elsewhere, or been removed by
martyrdom; and so closed their career itself. Every
other manifestation was either confined to the Apo-
stles, or made, at the utmost, to one or two persons
distinct from them; and every other manifestation, in
comparison with this, was in some sense a casual and
certainly an unexpected and unforeseen event. Of this
only were the spectators apprised beforehand; and
consequently, of this only had they reason also to en-
tertain the expectation beforehand. We may look
upon this manifestation, then, as the manifestation κατ᾽
ἐξοχήν; as that manifestation in particular by which
our Saviour thought proper to confirm the reality of
his resurrection with the greatest publicity, and in the
most solemn manner. The fact of such a manifesta-
tion is an answer to the common objection, why Christ
did not appear in person after his resurrection to the
same people, among whom he had been personally con-
versant before his death; for it proves that he did so
appear to those who alone could have any reasonable
claim, a prior, to the privilege of seeing him after his
resurrection ; viz. to those who alone had known and
believed in him before his death. It is that mani-
festation which a Gospel that was first written, and
written upon the spot, would naturally, and perhaps
exclusively select for narration; and St. Matthew’s
Gospel, by confining itself to this, and saying nothing
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 905
of any other which was not connected with it, has
not only discharged the duty of a Gospel in general,
(which never could have been discharged without some
account of the personal manifestations of Christ alive
after his death,) but has communicated an integrity
and an unity to its own account, which the later nar-
ratives, in the nature of things, could not commu-
nicate to their’s.
Now a message of this sort, and designed to conduct
to an effect like this, it seems morally certain never
would be sent, much less acted upon, before the disci-
ples had been fully convinced of the reality of the
resurrection itself. But they were not convinced of
this, until the evening of Easter-day. St. Matthew
does not so much as insinuate that ¢hzs report of the
women was disbelieved; and yet it is certain that
every report on Easter-day, prior to that of Peter, was
disbelieved: but he does more than imply, he expressly
affirms, that the apostles acted in conformity to the
message now received—they set out as they were com-
manded. And if this was the case, we may take it for
granted that they set out as soon as they were com-
manded : they could not have received the message on
one day, and obeyed it only a week afterwards. The
time when they set out then, is virtually the time when
they received the command; and consequently while
there is proof that they were still in Jerusalem, that is,
that they had not yet set out for Galilee, there is proof
that they had not yet received the command to depart
thither.
Now it may be collected from John xx. 19. 26, and
Luke xxiv. 33, that the Apostles were still resident in
Jerusalem, and in the same place, within that city,
where they had been assembled on the evening of the
sixteenth of Nisan—eight days or one week after that
VOL. III. x
306 Dissertation Forty-third.
date ; which cannot mean earlier than the twenty-
third, and may mean as late as the twenty-fourth.
They had not, therefore, left Jerusalem to go into
Galilee before the 23d of Nisan: for as to supposing
that they might have been thither, and returned thence
again, after the sixteenth and before the twenty-third,
it is too absurd to require any disproof. Yet, John
xxi. 1, at the time when ¢hat incident happened, the
Apostles were certainly in Galilee. Consequently they
must have gone thither between John xx. 29. and
xxi. 1. Between these extremes, then, they must have
received the command which’ instructed them when to
proceed thither.
That they would not receive any such command
before the twenty-first of Nisan, at least, may be fur-
ther argued as follows. The final end of sending the
message in general, besides the proposed manifestation
ultimately to ensue upon it, had in view the necessity of
special instructions for directing the motions of the
Apostles, now that they had been deprived of the con-
stant presence and superintendence of Christ himself.
Obedience to the law would require their continuance
in Jerusalem, under any circumstances, till the feast of
the Azyma was over; and under the circumstances of
their attendance on this occasion, perhaps more impe-
riously than ever. The same obedience, however,
would not require their attendance later than the
twenty-first of Nisan; yet St.John has shewn they
were still there on the twenty-second and the twenty-
third. The first of these days, it is true, was a sab-
bath; but the second was not. They might then,
have left Jerusalem on the latter, if they had not
thought it their duty to remain there still. It was a
special admonition, therefore, which instructed’ them to
return to Galilee. And as they received such direc-
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 307
tions when to leave Judea, so did they probably re-
ceive similar instructions when to return thither again.
They were not still there some time after the 23d of
Nisan ; but they were again there some time before the
26th of Jar ; which was the day of the Ascension into
heaven.
To this explanation of the first manifestation in St.
Matthew there are two objections; which I shall pro-
ceed to consider. The first is, that the words os de
ἐπορεύοντο ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ, XXvili. 9, by
restricting the manifestation to the day of the resur-
rection, are at variance with it. But if these words
were absent from the text, that verse would begin with
καὶ ἰδοὺ merely; the usual formulary, both of transi-
tion and of connection, which occurs so often in St.
Matthew, when he would pass from one memorable
particular to another, without affirming any thing of
the relative order between them; of which idiom, ix.
1, 2, in his Gospel is decidedly an example.
It may be added, not because the argument requires
it, but on purely independent and critical principles,
that there is good reason to suspect the words in ques-
tion to be an interpolation. The difficulty to which we
should be reduced by retaining them, and supposing
them to have come from St. Matthew himself, is al-
most self-evident: and I think it is such that no skill
nor ingenuity, without the most unwarrantable and
gratuitous assumptions, could succeed in harmonizing
this Evangelist with the rest. Now they are marked
in Griesbach’s edition of the New Testament with the
note of probable omission—which means with him
only one degree removed from certain or unquestion-
able spuriousness. Besides Origen and Chrysostom,
they are not acknowledged by Jerome or by Augustin
—they are wanting in all the most ancient of the ver-
x 2
308 Dissertation Forty-third.
sions, such as the Syriac or Peschito—the Arabic—
the Persic—the Armenian—the Coptic—the old Ita-
lic *—and the Saxon—and what is more, they do not
appear in the Codex Vaticanus—or the Codex Bezz.
Their absence from this last manuscript is perhaps one
of the most decisive indications of their apocryphal
character; for there is good reason to believe that this
manuscript is among the most ancient in existence;
and still more that it exhibits the state of the Vulgate
text prior to any of the recensions, whether Origen’s,
Hesychius’, or Lucian’s: a state of the text abounding
in extraordinary and unauthorized readings, which
from time to time had crept into it, and had gradually
debased more and more the purity of the original: the
common source of all which, however, was some endea-
vour to clear up, to illustrate, to reconcile or connect
the several Evangelical accounts}. The interpolation
* SS. Deperditorum Vat. Coll.
ili. Pars ii. 260, there is a version
of St. Matthew’s Gospel, accord-
ing to the editor Angelo Maio,
older than that of Jerome, which
he calls the Codex Claremonta-
nus. In this, too, the words in
question are wanting.
+ It is observed by Jerome,
Operum i. 1425, 1426. Prefatio
in iv. Evangelia ; Magnus siqui-
dem hie in nostris codicibus er-
ror inolevit, dum quod in eadem
re alius Evangelista plus dixit,
in alio quia minus putaverint,
addiderunt. vel dum eumdem
sensum alius aliter expressit, ille
qui unum e quattuor primum le-
gerat, ad ejus exemplum ceteros
quoque estimaverit emendan-
dos. unde accidit ut apud nos
mixta sint omnia, et in Marco
plura Luce atque Matthei, rur-
sum in Mattheo plura Johannis
et Marci, et in ceteris reliquo-
rum que aliis propria sunt, inve-
niantur.
The interpolation in the pre-
sent instance, it is true, is no-
thing which could have been
borrowed from any other Evan-
gelist: but it might have been
borrowed from St. Matthew him-
self: and it was just as natural
to explain an Evangelist by him-
self, as one Evangelist by an-
other. It appears to me a pro-
bable conjecture that the in-
terpolation itself was made at
twice ; that the words ὡς δὲ ézo-
pevovro were interpolated first,
and the words ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς
μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ were interpolated
next. Now this was manifestly
possible ; for the former might
obviously have been a marginal
annotation, founded on Matt.
XXvill. 11. and the latter, a simi-
lar explanation, foundedon Matt.
xxviii. 8: and this conjecture is
309
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection.
in the present instance, if it is one, must plainly have
had this object in view; and, consequently, had there
not been the most decisive and unquestionable proof
of its absence from all the extant copies of St. Mat-
thew’s Gospel, it was likely to have crept into general
circulation as speedily as any; in which case it would
- hardly have failed to appear in the Codex Bezz, which
preserves so many others of the like description. So
far from this, however, we might venture to say that
for the first four or five centuries all the evidence,
which we have to appeal to, is in favour of its non-
existence. 'The Alexandrine manuscript is the most
ancient which exhibits it; yet there is no reason to
suppose that this MS. is a better authority than the
Vatican *.
strongly supported by the fact
that some of the manuscript au-
thorities, quoted by Griesbach,
have the one of these, viz. the
ὡς δὲ ἐπορεύοντο, but not the
other, ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐ--
rov—while the best authorities
of every kind omit them both.
* As it is confessed that no
MS. of St. Matthew’s Gospel, at
present in existence, is known, or
even probably supposed to be of
greater antiquity than the fifth
or sixth century; if there are
any MSS. of a later date, which
contain the words in question,
this is no proof that they were
always a part of his Gospel.
The interpolation itself might
be made at a period earlier than
the age of the oldest extant MS.
yet not before the fifth century.
In any case, it is much easier to
account for its presence in a
given instance, than for its ab-
sence ; if the words were origi-
nally a part of St. Matthew’s
Gospel. Why they were ever
left out, if they always belonged
to the Gospel, so as not now to
appear in some MSS., and in so
many of the most ancient ver-
sions, it would be difficult to
say ; though why they were pro-
bably introduced, even had they
originally been wanting, very
satisfactory reasons might be as-
signed.
Next to the direct testimony
of MSS. in the original Greek,
which still want the words in
question—and that of the dif-
ferent versions, which, though
made at so remote ἃ period,
shew that they were absent from —
the copies used for these trans-
lations; the quotations of the
most ancient of the Fathers may
be justly appealed to, in proof
that they also were strangers to
the existence of the words in
question. In the Harmonia, or
Diatessaron, ascribed to Tatian,
caput 175, began without them:
καὶ ἰδοὺ ᾿Ιησοῦς ἀπήντησεν αὐταῖς:
Et ecce Jesus occurrit 1115. Ori-
8
310
Dissertation Forty-third.
It may be urged in the next place that xxviii. 11-
15, which certainly belongs to the day of the resurrec-
tion itself, is placed after this appearance to the women.
But this objection ought to have no weight, unless it
could be previously shewn that no such phenomenon as
the Trajection of facts is to be found in, or to be ex-
gen, Contra Celsum, ii. 70. Ope-
rum i. 440. C. cites the passage
as follows: καὶ per’ ὀλίγον φησὶν
ὁ Ματθαῖος" καὶ ἰδοὺ ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς ὑπήν-
toe αὐταῖς. Again, Eusebius,
Demonstratio Evangelica,x.508.
B: οἷς ἀκόλουθα καὶ ὁ Ματθαῖος δι-
δάσκει λέγων᾽ καὶ ἰδοὺ 6 “Ingots ἀπ-
ἤντησεν αὐταῖς" δηλονότι ταῖς ἀμφὶ
τὴν Μαγδαληνὴν Μαρίαν, λέγων᾽ χαί-
ρετε, K,7.A. Cf, also SS. Deper-
ditorum Vat. Coll. i. 97.C—roo.
A. Again, Ambrose, i. 368. D.
De Isaac et Anima v. §. 43: Ta-
men dum vadunt Apostolis nun-
tiare, miseratus querentes, Oc-
currit eis Jesus dicens: Avete.
ille autem accesserunt, et tenu-
erunt pedes ejus, et adoraverunt
eum. Cf.i. 1536. B.C. in Lu-
cam, lib. x. ὃ. 147. Hilarius
Pictaviensis, Operum 607. B.
in Matt. Canon xxxiii: Sed
confestim Dominus mulierculis
per angelum adhortatis occur-
rit, et consalutat : ut nunciature
exspectantibus discipulis resur-
rectionem, non angeli potius
quam Christi ore loquerentur.
quod vero primum muliercule
Dominum vident, salutantur,
genibus advolvuntur, nunciare
apostolisjubentur,&c. Again,the
metrical paraphrase of Juven-
cus: (A. D. 328. see Jerome in
Chronico, and the SS. Ecclesi-
astici, Ixxxiv. Operum iv. Pars
8, 122.) Denique precipiti ce-
lerantes gaudia cursu, | Talia
discipulis referunt, tumulumque
relinquunt. | Ecce iteris medio
clarus se ostendit Iésus, | Et fi-
das matres blandus salvere jube-
bat. Jerome, Comm. in loc. Ope-
rum iv. parsi.142. ad calcem: Et
exierunt cito de monumento cum
timore et gaudio magno, curren-
tes nunciare discipulis ejus. et
ecce Jesus occurrit illis, dicens,
Avete: and he further observes ;
(Juz sic querebant, que ita cur-
rebant, merebantur obvium ha-
bere Dominum resurgentem, et
primum audire, Avete.
Augustin, iii. pars ii#. 138. Ὁ.
E. De Consensu Evangelistarum
iii. 69: Tune jam, secundum
Matthzeum, Ecce Jesus occurrit
illis dicens, Avete. He adds
(G.): Sane Mattheeus etiam il-
lud inseruit, abscedentibus mu-
lierculis, que illa omnia vide-
rant et audierant, venisse etiam
quosdam, χα.
Chrysostom, Operum vii. 834.
E. 835. A. In Matt. Homilia 89.
3: ἐπεὶ οὖν ἐξῆλθον μετὰ φόβου καὶ
χαρᾶς, καὶ ἰδοὺ, ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς ἀπήντησεν
αὐταῖς, λέγων" χαίρετε ... καὶ προσε-
κύνησαν αὐτῷ: Cf. also Operum
viii. Spuria, 266. D. E. in Pa-
scha vi. 2. διὰ τί δὲ πρῶται αὐτὸν
ὁρῶσιν αἱ γυναῖκες, καὶ εὐαγγελιζό-
μενος λέγει, γυναῖκες χαίρετε. Also,
Ibid. 273. C.
The forms of these several
quotations agree together: and
it seems a fair inference from
them that none of the Fathers
in question read the passage in
St. Matthew’s Gospel otherwise
than as they quote it.
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 31]
pected from, St. Matthew: the contrary whereof is the
case. Yet for this Trajection in the present instance
some reasons may be advanced as follows:
I. The message which was sent to the Eleven, with
the command to depart into Galilee, was sent by the
women, who formed either the whole or part of the
company which first visited the sepulchre. And this
might very well be the case; for two of them, Salome
and the other Mary, were the mothers of three among
the Apostles, and therefore more likely to be living
with the Apostles than any of the other women; and
if our Lord’s male disciples were still in Jerusalem
after the twenty-first of Nisan, there is no reason why
the female should not be so too. Besides which, this
was the first manifestation which had yet been made
to these two of the number in particular; and this is
the best explanation of their conduct, in the visible
emotion of transport with which they were affected by
it. There was, consequently, a natural association be-
tween the account of their visit to the sepulchre, and
the account of ¢izs manifestation, notwithstanding the
difference of time between them; and there was a still
closer connection between the message transmitted
through them by the angels on the one, and that which
was sent through them by our Lord upon the other.
II. If this fact was thus to be anticipated, the next,
relating to the report of the guard, must needs be de-
ferred. The account of this report, then, may be a
Trajection with regard to the first manifestation; but
it will still be regular with regard to the second. Its
present position is the most convenient which it could
occupy ; completing the account begun, in reference to
this subject, on the Saturday, but not interfering with
the connection and proper prosecution of the course of
events on the Sunday, and from that time forwards ;
X 4
312 Dissertation Forty-third.
which is the history of the resurrection, as commencing
with the visit to the tomb, but not ended until the ac-
count of the manifestation in Galilee had been added.
Having thus removed, or endeavoured to remove,
every difficulty in the way of a general harmony of
this part of the Gospel] narrative, I shall conclude with
embodying the whole in as compendious a summary as
possible: which will include all that yet remains to be
said upon it.
I. Ty ἐπιφωσκούση, (Matt. xxviii. 1.) or Alay πρωΐ,
(Mark xvi. 2.) or “OpOpov βαθέος, (Luke xxiv. 1.) or
Σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης, (John xx. 1.) all which are descrip-
tions, as nearly as possible, of the same point of time;
on the first day of the week, the sixteenth of the Jew-
ish Nisan and the seventh of the Julian April, two
parties of women, disciples of our Lord and natives of
Galilee, who had probably concerted among themselves,
as early as the evening of the Friday before, to meet at
the Holy sepulchre, and complete the embalment of the
dead body of Christ—the one the party of Salome, and
the other the party of Johanna—set out accordingly,
but from different quarters, and perhaps at somewhat
different times, to proceed thither.
II. About the same time, or soon after their departure,
and while they were still upon the road, the angels
descend from heaven ; the earthquake ensues; the stone
is removed from the entrance of the tomb: and our
Saviour rises from the dead. Matt. xxvili. 2-4, Mark
Xvi. 9.
III. The party of Salome, being the earlier of the
two, in about an hour after their departure, and con-
sequently ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου, Mark xvi. 2. with
sunrise or soon after it, arrive first at the tomb; and
perceiving as they drew near that the stone had been
removed from the mouth, and that the entrance was
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 313
beset by a number of strangers, they conclude that the
grave had been opened, and the body taken away.
Mary Magdalene, as the youngest of the party, is sent
back immediately to report this. intelligence to Peter
and John. The other two women, after promising,
perhaps, to wait there for her return accompanied by
Peter and John, proceed to the sepulchre, to be satis-
fied what was the matter. Upon this the particulars
ensue, both outside and inside of the tomb, followed
immediately by their departure, which are related
Matt. xxviii. 5-8. and Mark xvi. 5-8. Though they
might have promised to wait for the return of their
companion, yet the vision which they saw in the tomb,
and the message which they received for the Apostles,
are abundant reasons why they would not stay, but
make the best of their way back.
IV. When the women were still on the road, the
angel also having ceased to be visible externally, the
watch, recovering from their consternation, proceed to
the city, and make their report. Matt. xxviii. 11-15.
V. Sometime after this, long enough to leave the
vicinity of the sepulchre solitary and unoccupied, the
party of Johanna arrive; not having met by the way
with either Mary of Magdala, or Salome and the other
Mary; which, in so large and populous a city as Jeru-
salem, through which they might all have to pass,
would be no improbable contingency: and those things
ensue which are recorded, Luke xxiv. 2-9.
VI. After their departure also, and at a period of
time which, if she had to go back as far as Bethany,
and to find Peter and John, was not perhaps much
earlier than the second or the third hour of the day,
Mary Magdalene returns, accompanied by Peter and
John. Luke xxiv. 12. John xx. 2-10.
VII. Upon the departure of Peter and John, which
314 Dissertation Forty-third.
might not be until after the third hour of the day,
Mary, being left by herself, which might be for some
time longer, has the vision of the angels, John xx.
11-13; and immediately after, John xx. 14-18. Mark
xvi. 9-11. a personal manifestation to herself of Jesus
Christ alive: which is the first of its kind. Her re-
port of this manifestation, on the same supposition as
before, could not be made much earlier than the fifth
or even the sixth hour of the day.
VIII. Soon after the fifth hour of the day, when
the ordinary mid-day repast® of the Jews would be
over *, after the return of Salome and also of Peter,
and consequently aware of what had happened to
them; but before the return of Mary Magdalene, and
therefore ignorant as yet of any personal reappearance
of Christ: Cleopas and his companion, whom Origen
supposes to have been Simon}, and Epiphanius sup-
* In the Anthology there is an
epigram of Posidippus, in which
he is supposed to send a message
by his boy to a vintner, to sup-
ply more wine for a party, wait-
ing in expectation of it. It ends,
. ἀλλὰ τρόχαζε" | ὥρας yap πέμ-
arns πάντες ἀθροιζόμεθα. Antholo-
gia, ii. 49. Posidippi xii. Cicero,
Ad Familiares, vii. 30: Ita, Ca-
ninio Consule, scito neminem
prandisse ; because he was made
consul suffectus after the seventh
hour on the last day of the year.
Quarta vix demum exponimur
hora. | ... Millia tum pransz? tria
repimus. Horace, Sermonum i.
v. 23-25. Jam nunc in balnea
salva | Fronte licet vadas, quan-
quam solida hora supersit | Ad
sextam. Juvenal, xi. 204. Sosia,
prandendum est; quartam jam
totus in horam | Sol calet; ad
quintam flectitur umbra notam.
Ausonius, Ephemeris. Cf. Phi-
lostorgius’ account of the death
of Valentinian the younger, A.D.
392: E. H. xi. i. 526. D.
7 This supposition occurs in
Origen repeatedly: vide Contra
Celsum, 11.62. Operum i.434.B:
68. 438. D: Operum iii. 274. B:
275.A: Homilia xix. 8.9. in Je-
remiam: iv. 8. A. Comm. in Joh.
tom.i. 7: Ibid. 11. B. tom. i. το.
Basil, Operum i. 988. C. in
Isaiz vi. has the same supposi-
tion. Ambrose is referred to in
the SS. Dep. Vat. Coll. i. 178.
as quoting the substance of one
of Eusebius’ Questiones ad Ma-
rinum, where he calls Cleophas’
companion, Ammaon. Vide
his Opera, i. 723. B. Apolo-
gia David Altera, viii. ὃ. 43.
Ibid. 848. E. in Psalm. xxxviii.
¢ Jos. Vita 54. Bell. Jud. ii. viii. 5. Theophylact, i. 555. E. 556. A. in. Jo-
hann. iv.
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 315
poses to have been Nathanael, but whom Luke xxiv.
33, shews not to have been one of the Apostles, set
out for Emmaus. The distance of Emmaus from Je-
rusalem, as stated by St. Luke, is confirmed apparently
by Josephus*. For this distance, which would thus
be travelled in the heat of the day, and more especially
for the lengthened conversation with our Lord which
ensued upon it, we cannot allow less than three or
four hours’ time. They would consequently arrive at
Emmaus about the ninth hour of the day; when it
might truly be said that it was towards evening, and
the day had begun to decline; though it would not be
so late as sunset. Nor would this be much earlier
than the ordinary time of the afternoon’s repast. At
the time of this repast, when it arrived, our Lord was
made known to them; and they returned soon after-
wards to Jerusalem. This was the second appearance
of Jesus—Mark xvi. 12, 13. Luke xxiv. 13-32: and
we may suppose that he would appear to them soon
after he ceased to be visible to Mary. The disbelief
of their report, asserted by St. Mark, is critically true
of St. Thomas; and must be understood of him.
IX. Between the time of the disappearance at Em-
maus, and the time of the return to Jerusalem, Luke
xxiv. 34, confirmed by 1 Cor. xv. 5, authorizes us to
suppose an appearance to Peter; the third of its kind
this day *. At the time of that assembly of the Apo-
§. 15, Cleophas is mentioned by
name, but not his companion.
Cf. i. 1130. F. in Psalm. exviii.
Sermo xiii. δ. 1. Ammaon is again
joined with Cleophas, 1.1541. E.
in Lucam, Lib. x. ὃ. 173: which
is the passage referred to in the
Scriptores Deperditi.
Theophylact, 1. 491. Εἰ. In Lu-
i Operum i. 67. D. Saturniliani vi.
cam, XXIV: τινὲς τὸν ἕνα τούτων τῶν
δύο, αὐτὸν τὸν Λουκᾶν εἶναί φασι:
διὸ καὶ ἀπέκρυψε τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ὄνομα
ὁ Εὐαγγελιστής.
* Theophylact, i. 495. Β. in
Lucam, xxiv: ἀνέστησαν μὲν γὰρ
κατ᾽ αὐτὴν τὴν ὥραν (i. 6. Cleopas
and his companion) ὑπέστρεψαν
δὲ μετὰ πλείους, ὅσας εἰκὸς ἢν αὐὖ-
k Bell. Jud. vii. vi. 6.
316 Dissertation Forty-third.
stles, which is spoken of at verse 33, this appearance
was clearly a recent event; and that assembly, it is
equally evident from verses 41—43, was about the time
of the usual supper hour; which could not long have
been passed when Jesus appeared among them. One
object, or at least one effect, of this manifestation to
Peter was probably this; to command the Apostles,
who had hitherto resided in Bethany, to reside thence-
forward in Jerusalem, choosing for that purpose the
same house where they had celebrated the Jast supper.
This would account both for their being found so col-
lected within Jerusalem, at the time of the return of the
two disciples, on the evening of this day, and for their
being still ever after, as matter of course, in the same
place—Mark xvi. 14. John xx. 19. 26: which Acts i.
13, compared with Mark xiv. 15. and Luke xxii. 12,
proves almost demonstratively to have been the supper
chamber itself. The two disciples might return from
Emmaus in half the time which it had taken to go
thither: and if they set out a little before the eleventh
hour of the day, they would rejoin the Apostles about
the first or second hour of the night; when supper
would be over, and it might justly be said to be late.
X. Soon after their arrival, Jesus himself appears to
the Apostles, Thomas alone being absent; which cir-
cumstance may perhaps be accounted for by supposing
that he did not yet know of the appearance to Peter,
and of the command to assemble and to continue in
Jerusalem transmitted by him. St. Luke’s mention of
Tous ἕνδεκα, notwithstanding his absence, constitutes no
difficulty. It is a case in point with Mark ix. 35,
where the number was eleven ; and with 1 Cor. xv. 5,
\ a 4 ὃ , - ε»’ , \ 4 ς ,
τοὺς ποιῆσαι, τὸ διάστημα τῶν ἑξή- Σίμωνι διὰ μέσου, ὁδοιπορούντων
/ τ “ς΄ ΄ ~
κοντα σταδίων βαδίζοντας, ἐν ais αὐτῶν ev TH ὑποστροφῇ.
a a
πάντως καὶ 6 δεσπότης ὥφθη τῷ
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 917
τοῖς δώδεκα, though the number at that time also was
eleven: and it stands merely as a designation for the
Apostles in particular, to discriminate them from τοὺς
σὺν αὐτοῖς in general. Besides, as the absence of none
of them was previously specified, their body could be
spoken of only collectively afterwards. This is the
fourth manifestation, recorded partly by St. Luke and
partly by St. John: whose accounts must be arranged
as follows—First, John xx. 19-20. parallel with Luke
᾿ xxiv. 36-40: Secondly, Luke xxiv. 41—43. and thirdly,
John xx. 21-23: which will complete the relation of
what passed at this meeting. The remainder of St.
Luke’s account belongs, as I apprehend, to a much
later time; the day of the Ascension itself.
XI. After the disappearance of Jesus, what passed
between Thomas and the rest of the Apostles, recorded
John xx. 24, 25, takes place either the same night, or
the following morning. _
XII. Eight days after the same time, which I con-
sider to mean eight days inclusive of the sixteenth of
Nisan, and consequently on the twenty-third, which,
like that, would be on the first day of the week, our
Lord appears again, at the same time and place as
before; when Thomas also was present: John xx.
26-29. This is the fifth manifestation on record: and
as it was made to the whole body of Apostles, I con-
clude it to be the same which is mentioned 1 Cor.
xv. 5; and as accompanied by a specific reproach on
the score of unbelief, though that reproach might pro-
perly apply only to Thomas, it is also the appearance
alluded to, Mark xvi. 14.
XIII. On some day, soon after the twenty-third
of Nisan, Jesus appears to Salome and the other Mary,
and perhaps to Mary Magdalene along with them;
and sends a message to the Apostles that they should
318 Dissertation Forty-third.
depart into Galilee, promising to appear unto them
there: Matt. xxviii. 9,10. This is the sixth mani-
festation on record.
XIV. In obedience to this command, the Apostles
depart accordingly ; and at some time and place, ap-
pointed by Jesus, though not expressly mentioned,
when the whole body of believers in Galilee had been
previously collected together, the most open and public
of our Lord’s manifestations takes place: Matt. xxviii.
16-20. 1 Cor. xv.6. This is the seventh manifesta-
tion on record. The number of persons to whom it
was made was more than five ‘hundred; for more than
five hundred, whom St. Paul calls brethren, subsequent-
ly became members of the Hebrew church: and the
place where it happened, which is described merely as
τὸ ὅρος, (that is, some well known mountain,) might
be Tabor; but I should rather believe was the same
mountain in the neighbourhood of Capernaum, where
the two sermons had been delivered, and where the
Apostles themselves had been ordained.
XV. Some time after this, and while the Apostles
were still in Galilee, Jesus appears to the seven disci-
ples (five of whom, if not the other two, were Apostles)
upon the sea of Tiberias, in the manner related by
John xxi. 1-22. This is the eighth appearance on
record.
XVI. After this, 1 Cor. xv. 7, Jesus appears to
James; by whom St. Paul must be supposed to mean
the James then living, and consequently the brother
of our Lord and the bishop of Jerusalem. This is the
ninth manifestation on record ; and if I may advance a
conjecture, its object was to command the Apostles to
return to Jerusalem*; and if so, it would take place in
* Hieronymus, iv. Pars ii#.102. ἃ passage from the Gospel ac-
De SS. Ecclesiasticis ii. quotes cording to the Hebrews, trans-
Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. 319
Galilee, some time before the twenty-sixth of the Jewish
Zif or Jar, and the sixteenth of the Julian May”%,
which was Ascension-day ; when it is certain they were
again in Jerusalem.
XVII. The tenth and the last appearance is that
which took place on the morning of Ascension-day,
1 Cor. xv. 7. Acts i. 4-8. Luke xxiv. 44-49: the
harmony of the two latter of which accounts will stand
as follows:
First, The historical notice of the occasion and place
of the meeting, Acts i. 4. Secondly, Luke xxiv. 44—49.
Thirdly, Acts i.5. Fourthly, Acts i. 6—8. The former
part of Luke xxiv. 44-49, it is true, may be such as
might belong to Easter-day; but the latter part, and
especially verse 49, could not possibly have belonged
to any period prior to Ascension-day. The time of
this, therefore, must determine the time of the rest.
XVIII. After Acts i. 6-8, and when our Lord and
his Apostles were arrived at Bethany, upon that part of
the mountain from which he ascended, but before the
blessing, in the act of which he was taken up from
them, I would place the residue of Mark xvi. from 15.
lated by himself, most probably
in reference to this appearance.
Dominus autem quum dedisset
sindonem sereo Sacerdotis, ivit
ad Jacobum, et apparuit ei. ju-
raverat enim Jacobus, se non
comesturum panem ab illa hora,
qua biberat calicem Domini, do-
nec videret eum resurgentem a
dormientibus. It proceeded to
relate how the appearance of
our Lord to him was intended
to release him from this vow.
Afferte, ait Dominus, mensam et
panem. Then, Tulit panem et
benedixit, ac fregit, et dedit Ja-
cobo Justo, et dixit ei: Frater
mi, comede panem tuum, quia
resurrexit Filius hominis a dor-
mientibus.
* This statement is founded
upon the supposition that the
month Nisan consisted of twen-
ty-nine days: if it were sup-
posed to consist of thirty, the
day of Pentecost, the sixth of
the Jewish Sivan, and the twen-
ty-sixth of the Julian May,
would still remain the same;
but Ascension-day, according to
the Jewish reckoning, would
be one day earlier, the twen-
ty-fifth of Jar, not the twenty-
sixth.
320 Dissertation Fi orty-third.
to18. It could have been delivered perhaps at no time
so properly as this; and it is said in verse 19, that after
our Lord had spoken unto them he was taken up into
heaven : which would thus be literally true.
XIX. After this, on the same day, our Lord is re-
ceived into heaven, Mark xvi. 19. Luke xxiv. 50, 51.
Acts i. 9: his ascension is followed by the appearance
of the two angels, Acts i. 10, 11—the Apostles return
to Jerusalem, Luke xxiv. 52. Acts i. 12—they elect
Matthias instead of Judas, and spend their time be-
tween Ascension-day and the day of Pentecost, in daily
resort to the temple, praising and blessing God, Luke
xxiv. 53. Acts i. 13—26. , .
Mark xvi. 20, does not admit of being harmonized
with any part of the intervening period ; for it con-
tains in brief an account of the propagation of Chris-
tianity from the day of Pentecost, when it properly
began, down to the time of the writer, when it had
long been established even in Rome. Its proper con-
junction, then, is with the first sentence at the outset
of the Gospel. Vide Dissertation ii. Vol. i. 121.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION I.
On the Supplemental relations of the Gospels.
Vide Dissertation i. vol. 1. page 40—71.
"THOUGH the most material objections which oc-
curred to me, as capable of being urged against the
supposition of these relations, were stated, and, as I
trust, satisfactorily answered, in their proper place at
the outset of the work; there is one objection, how-
ever, which may be considered to lie at the bottom of
every other, and yet does not appear among the rest.
I shall take the liberty, then, of noticing it here; espe-
cially since it admits of being refuted with the same
facility as any of the preceding.
The objection in question is this: allowing that the
Gospels might be written in the order in which they
stand, and allowing also that the Gospels last composed
might be designed to be supplementary to the Gospels
first composed, how are we to know where the one
were defective, and where the others are supplemen-
tary ? None of the Gospels acknowledges its own defi-
ciencies: they all appear at least to be continuous ac-
counts: where, then, are we to detect hiatuses in some,
and where, consequently, are we to look for the supple-
ment of them in others? It is equally a certain fact
both that, where any of the Gospels is really defective, it
leaves the discovery of the defect only to implication ;
and that even where another is supplying this defect,
it effects its purpose without declaring what it is doing.
The answer to this question is simple and obvious.
VOL. IIT. ¥
322 Appendix. Dissertation First.
We are enabled to discover deficiencies in one Gospel,
because we possess others which are more complete ;
we can perceive that some are supplementary, and that
others stand in need of supplement, because the narra-
tive of one continues where the narrative of another
breaks off. The four Gospels are four distinct his-
tories ; and yet the subject to which they relate is one
and the same in all. The ministry of our Saviour had
its proper beginning, and its proper termination; each
of which is marked out in them all alike: its interme-
diate duration, therefore, besides being something defi-
nite in itself, must necessarily be supposed the same in
each of the Evangelical accounts ; and the corresponding
periods in this duration, if they were distinguished by
their proper events, must have been distinguished by
corresponding events in each.
It would be in vain, in short, to contend that, while
the outline of the history in all the Evangelists must
be acknowledged to be the same, the distribution and
succession of its parts can be materially different. The
contrary is more naturally the inference; that as they
agree in the general, so they should be found to agree
in the particular: if they begin and conclude together,
they must go along with each other in the mean time.
Upon the admission of this presumption, the mere
comparison of the Gospel accounts demonstrates that
some are more or less defective, and others propor-
tionally more or less complete; from which it is an
obvious inference that as the former stand in need
of supplement, so the latter have furnished it to them.
It is a further and a no less obvious inference that
the authors of the latter had seen the former; and
both were aware of their deficiencies, and wrote ex-
pressly to supply them. If there were deficiencies in
the one, and there are actually supplements of the same
Supplemental relations of the Gospels. 323
in the other, it is too much to suppose that these last
in particular were made at random. We cannot be-
lieve that even the preexisting deficiencies were left in
existence by accident ; and it is much less credible that
the provision, which compensates for their existence,
was made and introduced by accident.
It is a notorious fact that sometimes even the four
Gospels, but much more frequently the three first, or
the two first of them in particular, run parallel to
each other, and in such a manner as to leave no reason-
able doubt that they are actually proceeding together,
and giving an account of the same tissue and succession
of events. This fact, I say, is undeniable; and it would
be the height of absurdity, beyond what the most bigoted
follower of the principle of Osiander himself could be
supposed capable of entertaining, to pretend to dispute
it. Nor shall I now stop to shew how, even in the
circumstances of such accounts as are most clearly
identical, some of the Evangelists, and those in every
instance the latest, are distinctly supplementary to
others, and those the earliest: it has been the main
object of the preceding Dissertations to shew that al-
ready. All which I think it worth while to observe is
this—that if it is possible to discover beyond a ques-
tion at what period, in a’ common series of events, any
two or more of the Gospels are coincident, or proceeding
in conjunction; it must be possible to discover where
they cease to be coincident, or when one of them in
particular begins to proceed by itself.
This is a case which is perpetually occurring. A
joint account is begun, and for a time is continued, by
two or more of the Gospel historians: nor do I mean
to say, that what they have once begun in common
they do not also complete in cé6mmon. But when this
end has been attained, and the integrity of a particular
Y 2
324 Appendix. Dissertation First.
narrative has been duly consulted, they no longer pro-
ceed in conjunction; the thread of the narration is
suspended by some one, or more, of the number,
though it may be carried forward by the rest. Nor
does it happen in these cases, that they never rejoin
each other: on the contrary, it is as certain that they
do not perpetually go on alone, as that they do not
perpetually go on in conjunction. The thread of the
narrative may be suspended for a time, but it is never
absolutely broken off: and the accounts which were
once coincident, and went along with each other, after
a certain interval of separation, are found to meet to-
gether again, and to become coincident as before. And
this alternation is observed to pervade the whole of
the Gospels.
Now it is with the duration of these intervals, and
with the particular nature of the matter which is found
interposed, for any one of these intervals, in one of the
Gospels independently of another, that we are chiefly
concerned upon the question of their supplementary
relations ; and of the consequences to which the admis-
sion of those relations immediately leads. It would be
only to repeat what has been done already, were we to
enter upon this examination afresh. I shall observe
merely, that the interval in many instances is deter-
mined by the internal evidence of the narrative itself ;
and is sometimes found to embrace even months in ex-
tent. And as to the nature of the matter interposed, it
frequently constitutes a large and integral portion of a
particular Gospel; in St. John and in St. Luke, by far
the greatest portion of the whole: in many instances
it consists of such accounts as are peculiar to some
one Gospel, and have nothing which resembles them in
any of the rest; the effect of which peculiarity is, or
should be, that there is not, or ought not to be, a
Supplemental relations of the Gospels. 325
shadow of pretence for questioning the regularity of the
position of the accounts in such instances. Though some-
thing like what is related there may be found, at a dif-
ferent time and place, in others of the Gospels, yet it
has been seen that, without impeaching the similarity
of the narratives, it may be justly contended that
they are not the same; and therefore, that the position
of the one is no criterion of the order of the other:
each may belong to a distinct time and place; and
therefore, each may naturally be related in its own.
Now when the continuity of one of the Gospel nar-
ratives has been broken off in this manner, and yet
the thread of the account is carried forward by ano-
ther; will any one deny that the matter which is thus
introduced into the latter is supplementary, as far as
regards what is found in the former? Can any one
doubt, then, whether the former account was so far de-
fective, and the latter is so far supplementary to it?
‘It is not possible to avoid this inference, except by
contending either that the matter, which is thus in-
troduced, is not fresh or additional matter: or that, if
it is so, it is inserted out of its place.
With regard to the first of these assertions, I should
reply, If the matter, thus introduced, is not fresh or
supplementary matter, shew me where it occurred be-
fore; and prove to me, beyond the possibility of a
question, that the matter, which occurred there, is the
very same matter which occurs here. With respect
to the second, I reply, If you cannot deny that fresh
or additional matter, strictly so called, is introduced
here, you have no right to question whether it is in-
troduced in its place or not. Fresh matter, we may
presume, would not be introduced here, if it did not
properly come in here; and it could never properly
come in here, unless the order of the preexisting nar-
Y 3
326 Appendix. Dissertation First.
ratives had been more or less interrupted here. We
have no right to suppose that additional matter would
be arbitrarily inserted any where; and much less
where, by being inserted, it would break and inter-
rupt, not connect and preserve, the continuity of a cer-
tain account. No previously entire and uninterrupted
narrative would furnish room for any such insertions ;
and no insertions in any such narrative would appear
otherwise than incongruous and out of place. Yet
neither of these effects is visible in the cases which we
are considering. Nothing appears less continuous than
the preexisting narratives, as judged of by their in-
ternal evidence, in the particular places where the mat-
ter in question may be found incorporated with them;
nothing less foreign or inappropriate, as referred to its
connection with what precedes or follows it, than the
matter which is thus introduced. On this subject there-
fore these observations may suffice.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION II.
On the principle of Classification us applied to St. Luke's
Gospel.
Cf. Dissertation iii. vol. i. page 237.
It is a favourite hypothesis of many modern ex-
positors, that, without maintaining the regularity of
St. Luke’s Gospel, the peculiarities of its structure,
which are the immediate consequences of its supposed
irregularity, may all be satisfactorily accounted for
upon the principle of a certain classification. I have
not thought proper formally to combat this hypothesis
any where; because it appeared to me to be so utterly
destitute of foundation that the best refutation of it
would be the practical; such as the Harmony of the
Gospels itself could not fail to exhibit: nor shall I
dwell long upon the consideration of it at present.
Five heads of the classification in question are pro-
posed by Rosenmuller in his Prolegomena to the Gos-
pel; which Mr. Horne also has transferred into his
Introduction. If these were proposed as a mere digest
or division of the contents of St. Luke’s Gospel, it
would be perfectly indifferent whether we adopted
them or not: for they follow each other consecutively,
and the order of the classes is the order also of the
chapters. But if it is implied by them, as I presume
it must be, that these distinct classes are to be appro-
priated to so many divisions or successions of events,
which must be brought together, and comprehended
within them respectively, on the ground of some sup-
Y 4
828 Appendix. Dissertation Second.
posed affinity or connection among themselves, but
without regard to the order of time; no supposition
can be more gratuitous or more absurd.
For first it is founded altogether on a petitio prin-
cipii ; insomuch as it must begin with assuming that
the Gospel of St. Luke abounds in irregularities, and
possesses no such property as that of a distinct supple-
_ mentary adaptation to the Gospels in being before it.
No principle of classification like this could apply to
the constitution of a narrative which was either sim-
ply regular, or simply supplementary ; and much less
to one which was both regular and supplementary ;
regular, as regarded the order and succession of its
own accounts; and supplementary, as regarded the per-
ceptible relation of its own to those of others. It would
be abundantly sufficient, then, to sap the foundation of
this hypothesis, if we could prove that St. Luke’s Gos-
pel in particular possesses in an eminent degree each of
these distinctive characteristics; both that of being
historically exact in itself, and that of being supple-
mentary to St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s: the former of
which conclusions will be demonstratively established, if
it can be made out that every supposed instance of a
transposition in his Gospel, truly and impartially con-
sidered, is no such thing; while the latter is almost a
direct consequence of the former. For if the Gos-
pel of St. Luke, both where it accompanies the other
two Gospels, and where it proceeds by itself, is still a
regular account, it follows that where it ceases to ac-
company the rest, yet continues to proceed by itself, if
it does not cease to be regular, it must begin to be
supplementary. ‘These two terms are in fact almost
convertible. A regular gospel, wheresoever it intro-
duces fresh matter into defective or noncontinuous
accounts, must be supplementary; and a supplementary
Classification of St. Luke’s Gospel. 329
Gospel, wheresoever it connects or fills up defective ac-
counts, must be regular.
It is an obvious objection, however, to the very prin-
ciple of this hypothesis, that the construction of a Gos-
pel upon any such plan would be little in unison with the
characteristic simplicity of the Gospel historians. Such
a method of compiling history might be adapted to a
period of advancement in the cultivation of litera-
ture, and might recommend itself to the choice of a
writer who was ambitious of novelty or refinement ;
but it would be utterly incongruous in the infancy of
history, and repugnant to the disposition of authors
who, like the Evangelists, were solicitous about nothing
but the truth and perspicuity of their accounts; and
neither sought nor wanted any recommendation from
the arts of composition as such. The first and most
obvious tendency, in writing history, is to follow
that plan which the nature of the subject dictates,
viz. the order and succession of events; nor could one
act contrary to this tendency without doing violence to
one’s natural sense of propriety,nor without experiencing
the bad effects of it in the result. When an histo-
rical composition is deprived of that luczdus ordo, which
is the spontaneous consequence of the series junctura-
que rerum, it is deprived of what Scaliger denominated
one of its eyes; and instead of clearness and simpli-
city, which ought to be its distinctive characteristics,
like a body deprived of sight, it is left to grope about
in darkness and confusion.
It is in vain too to search for any parallel to this
supposed principle of St. Luke’s classification, in the
structure of Suetonius’ Lives of the Cesars. There is
little affinity between the character of a Roman gram-
marian, and that of a Gospel historian; and still less
between the Life of a Roman emperor, and a Gospel
330 Appendix. Dissertation Second.
of Jesus Christ. For though, for argument’s sake, we
were to admit that any one of the Gospels might be
regarded in the light of a memoir of Jesus Christ, just
as one of Suetonius’ Lives may be considered a me-
moir of a particular emperor; what would the two
subjects have in common, that they should allow of
being handled alike ? What would there be in the sim-
ple, and uniform, and homogeneous tenor of the Gos-
pel history, to admit of comparison with the com-
plex and multifarious character of the Life of Julius
or of Augustus Cesar? This very diversity might
suggest to Suetonius the plan upon which he proceeded
in treating of his subject: he might not consider it pos-
sible, except by digesting it into a number of distinct as-
sortments or classes, to reduce such a mass of particular
facts to order, and to exhibit in their mutual relations,
and yet their individual distinctness, the incidents in
a certain Life, all tending to compose the history, or
to illustrate the character of his hero. But will
any one maintain that the simple narrative of our
Saviour’s personal history could not be related ex-
cept on this artificial principle; or that the complexity
of the subject was such as, @ priort, to suggest
the adoption of it to the writer? Besides which, the
Roman biographer had to exhibit in detail the accu-
mulated materials of a great number of years, which
in the case of Augustus more especially was little short
of a century; whereas the Gospel history, as such,
from first to last, cannot be said to contain more than
the events of three or four.
The classification of St. Luke’s Gospel upon any such
peculiar principle, if it implied no more than a divi-
sion or table of contents, would be, as I before observed,
a mere nominal distinction, without any real difference :
but if it implies more than this, it must imply, as I
Classification of St. Luke’s Gospel. 331
also observed, the collection of distinct particulars into
distinct classes; and consequently upon the ground of
some affinity with each other, and some disparity to
every thing else. Among the grounds of any such
affinity, the hypothesis excludes that of agreement in
the order of time; for it assumes the irregularity of
St. Luke’s Gospel: and it would be contrary to that as-
sumption that events should be any where considered as
classified together out of regard to the order of time.
The distribution of events upon such a principle would
imply the composition of a regular history. The prin-
ciple of the classification, then, must have been in
every instance the agreement of the things classified
between themselves, in some other respect, and not im
this. But what agreement in some other respect, and
not in this, could be made the ground of a common
classification of distinct, individual events, except the
possession of some common nature; that is, the mate-
rial resemblance of the things themselves? Events of
like kind, it is obvious, might be arranged together on
the principle of a certain classification, independently
of the order of time; but what else could ?
Now of this species of classification there is not a sin-
gle instance to be met with in St. Luke’s Gospel : and so
far from bringing things together on the ground of any
abstract resemblance between them, it is his constant
practice to separate and disjoin even those which had
a natural predisposition to be united. Among the general
events of our Saviour’s ministry, he never relates any
two in conjunction, because they were of like kind.
On this principle, he ought to have given in conjunc-
tion the two sermons delivered on the same mount of
Beatitudes—the two visits to Nazareth—the two mira-
cles of feeding—the four general circuits of Galilee—the
two missions of the Twelve and the Seventy respect-
982 Appendix. Dissertation Second.
ively—the two visits to the tomb, on the morning of
the resurrection—the ten manifestations of our Lord,
after that event—and the like; wherever there is rea-
son to conclude that incidents, perfectly analogous in
themselves, must have happened more than once in
the course of the Gospel history. In all these cases so
little disposition does St. Luke shew to bring things
together, which belonged to distinct points of time,
that it is a rule with him, of which we have seen
many instances heretofore, to relate nothing, which
was absolutely identical, twice.
Besides this, a writer, who had deliberately con-
ceived the design of digesting the materials of the Gos-
pel history into distinct classes and divisions of things,
could not fail to have fallen into such modes of ar-
rangement, as the nature of the subject itself must
spontaneously have suggested. For example, must
not our Saviour’s miracles, on this principle, have con-
stituted one class—and his discourses another—and
the general incidents of his life, a third? Among his
miracles, would not those of one description have re-
quired to be distinctly arranged from those of another ὃ
and would not the same thing hold good of his dis-
courses? Must not his ordinary discourses, by which I
mean the substance and particulars of his daily teach-
ing, have been discriminated from his eatraordinary,
by which I understand his discourses of every other
kind; the most obvious division of which would be
into the parabolic, the prophetical, and the contro-
versial, respectively? It is impossible, I think, to deny
that, in a Gospel history framed and constructed upon
any such plan as that of this assumed principle of
classification, we should have perceived distinct traces
of some such divisions as these. Yet not a vestige of
them is any where discoverable in the Gospel of St. Luke.
Classification of St. Luke’s Gospel. 333
The analysis of this Gospel, in fact, has shewn that
it contains nothing which might not be perfectly regu-
lar where it stands; which could not, without a pal-
pable absurdity, be taken out of the place already as-
signed to it, and transferred elsewhere: all which is
clearly at variance with the supposition of any princi-
ple of composition but the simply historical one—re-
gard to the order of time. It leads to the same con-
clusion, that as the duration of our Saviour’s personal
ministry was exactly three years in length, and conse-
quently as the most natural and comprehensive division
of the subject-matter of the Gospel history was accord-
ing to the series and extent of the particulars embraced
by each of those years respectively ; so were these di-
visions marked out, with sufficient exactness, in the
Gospel of St. Luke: for it was as easy to discover
where the several years of our Lord’s ministry, began
and ended, in this Gospel, as in any except St. John’s.
In short its whole plan and ceconomy are absolutely
repugnant to the notion of such a principle of classifi-
cation as Rosenmuller and others have supposed: nor
is this principle more applicable to the structure of
St. Luke’s Gospel than to that of St. Matthew’s or St.
Mark’s; to which, however, it has not been trans-
ferred. There is indeed a certain peculiarity by which
its external constitution stands somewhat distinguished
from their’s; though that peculiarity is more or less
common to them all. What this is, has been mentioned
in its proper place elsewhere®; and while it cannot be
confounded with any such assortment or distribution of
events, as would correspond to the classification in ques-
tion, it is also found to be inconsistent neither with
the supposition of the regularity of the individual Gos-
pel itself, nor yet with that of its supplementary rela-
tion to the Gospels in being before it.
a Vide Dissertation iii. Vol. i. page 237, 238.
APPENDIX.
ene
DISSERTATION ITI.
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine, or
other parts of the East.
Vide Dissertation 11. Vol.i. page 135. last lime—141. line 24.
‘Tue reader will perceive that the discussion of this
question is intimately connected with the further in-
quiry, in what language it is most probable that St.
Matthew would write his Gospel, supposing it intended
first and properly for the use of the inhabitants of Pa-.
lestine, the Jews of Jerusalem, or the members of the
Christian church established among his countrymen in
that city. In addition to what was observed upon this
question, when it was before under discussion, a va-
riety of testimonies might have been produced, bearing
more or less directly on the points at issue, and calcu-
lated to assist the judgment of the reader in forming
his own opinion concerning them. These, therefore, I
shall take the liberty of laying before him, without
entering into any lengthened investigations, or propos-
ing to do more than simply to methodize and arrange
the several facts, which I have collected for his consi-
deration.
Among the followers of Xerxes in the invasion of
Greece, B.C. 480, the poet Cheerilus described a people,
who must be understood to be the Jews, yet spoke the
Punic or Pheenician language, as follows * :
Jerome in
* For the age of Cheerilus,
see Suidas, Χοίριλος. He desig-
nates him as νεανίσκος ἐπὶ τῶν
Περσικῶν, ᾿ολυμπιάδι oc. Euse-
bius, Chronicon Armeno-Lati-
num, Pars 112, 207. dates his acme
Olympiad lIxxiv. i.
Chronico, Olympiad Ixxiv. 2.
The poem from which the lines
in question are taken was en-
titled, ᾿Αθηναίων νίκη κατὰ Ξέρξου :
and the author was rewarded
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine. 335
τῶνδ᾽ ὄπιθεν διέβαινε γένος θαυμαστὸν ἰδέσθαι,
γλῶσσαν μὲν Φοίνισσαν ἀπὸ στομάτων ἀφιέντες,
ᾧκουν δ᾽ ἐν Σολύμοις ὄρεσι πλατέῃ παρὰ λίμνῃ ὃ.
The book of Ecclesiasticus was written in Hebrew,
that is, as we may justly presume, in the vernacular
language of Palestine; and was translated by Jesus,
the grandson of the author, into Greek. This appears
from the preface: and independently of that, it might
have been collected from such passages as this: “ Wis-
“ς dom is according to her name? ; that is, her Hebrew
name; denoting deep or solid. The author, at the
lowest date, is supposed to have lived about B.C. 200;
and the translator about B.C. 133.
There are allusions to the native language of the
country, in the second book of Maccabees, in the time
of Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. 168 or 167.. “ He an-
‘“‘ swered in his own language—She exhorted every
** one of them in her own language—She. . .spake in her
“ country language’—With that he began in his own
* language ὁ *.”
Machabeorum primum librum, says Jerome, He-
braicum reperi. secundus Greecus est: quod ex ipsa
quoque φράσει probari potest “.
In like manner: Fertur et zavaperos Jesu filii Sirach
liber, et alius, ψευδεπίγραφος, qui Sapientia Salomonis
inscribitur. quorum priorem Hebraicum reperi ... se-
cundus apud Hebreeos nusquam est.
for it with the gift of a stater of
gold for every line. The same
thing is recorded of the poems
of Oppian. Cf. Suidas, Ὄππια-
vés: Sozomen, Oratio ad Impe-
ratorem Theodosium, Εἰ. H. 394.
B—D. Also, of the vith Book of
Virgil’s Aineid. See Servius, ad
/Eneid. vi. 862.
* Nehemiah xiii. 24. mention
occurs of the dialect of Ashdod ;
that is of one of the cities of
the Philistines, (Azotus,) as dis-
tinct from that of the native
Jews; and vice versa. Esther,
viii. g. also, the Jews’ language
is opposed to the other lan-
guages of the time being.
a Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica, ix. 9. 412. B. Cf. Josephus, Contra Apio-
nem, i.22. Ὁ vi. 22. Cf. xliii. 8.
fatio ad omnes Libros Vet. Test.
¢ vii. 8. 21. 27.
f Ibid. 937, 938. Preefatio in Libros Salomonis.
Ὁ ΧΗ 37. €1.321, 322. Pre.
336 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
The book of Enoch, which Dr. Laurence translated
from the A‘thiopic, and published in 1821, was ori-
ginally written in Hebrew; as appears both from the
etymon of the name Armon or Hermon, which is given
in it%, and because the translation of it into other lan-
guages, some time to come, is alluded to in the follow-
ing passage»; “ But when they shall write all my
“ words correctly in their own languages.” In their
own languages, no doubt, as opposed to the Hebrew,
the language in which Enoch is supposed to be speak-
ing.
The date of this work may be uncertain. I shall
mention only that in the opinion of the learned editor,
it was written in the reign of Herod ‘, before the birth
of Christ: and even if written after Christ, it will still
belong to the end of the first, or the beginning of the
second century.
The Gospel of St. Matthew, according to the Naza-
renes, existed in the vernacular Hebrew, in the library
of Pamphilus at Czesarea; and in Beroea of Syria:
where Jerome tells us* he saw it; and translated it.
The Gospel according to the Ebionites existed also in
the same language. The genuine Gospel of St. Matthew
in the vernacular Hebrew, as it has been elsewhere men-
tioned, was reported to have been carried by the apostle
Bartholomew into upper Asia; and to have been found
there by Pantznus, before the end of the second
century. Epiphanius asserts that translations of St.
John’s Gospel, and of the Acts of the Apostles, into
the native Hebrew, had been made, and existed in his
time at Tiberias'. Nor is there any thing incredible
in such an assertion.
g& vii. sect. ii. 8. See also xiii. 8. 9. h civ. 8. i Preliminary Dissertation,
Xxili—xxxvi. k Operum iv. Pars 24a, 102. De SS. Ecclesiasticis, cap. 3.
1 Operum i. 127. C. Ὁ. Ebionei, iii: 137. B. Ibid. xii. Philostorgius, E. H. vii. 14.
508, 509: has a remarkable account of the discovery of a copy of the Gospel ac-
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine. 337
The only instances, in which the evangelists have
preserved to us the very words of our Saviour; Ta-
litha cumi; Eiphphatha; El Eh, lama sabachthani ;
are instances of his speaking in the Hebrew, or the
vernacular language of the country. To these we may
add the names of Cephas, of Boanerges, of Thomas,
of Barjonas, of Bartimeus, of Tabitha, of Barnabas,
&e.: all of them Syro-hebraic or vernacular denomina-
tions; and most of them translated or interpreted ac-
cordingly, by what is equivalent to them in Greek. In
like manner, the surname, ascribed by Hegesippus to
James the Just, Oblias or Munimentum™®, is vernacu-
lar Hebrew *.
* When Marsyas, the freed-
man of Herod Agrippa, brought
him the news of Tiberius’ death,
he said to him, in the Hebrew
tongue, “The Lion is dead.”
Ant. Jud. xviii. vi. 10. In
another place, Ant. xx. iii. 4.
Josephus tells us that Izates,
king of the Adiabenes, who had
embraced Judaism, sent five of
his children to learn the verna-
cular language of Judea, and to
be instructed in the law, at Je-
rusalem. In like manner, Bell. iv.
i. 5. the Jews in Gamala, it is
manifestly implied, were speak-
ing a language akin to Syriac,
though their own tongue, when
they were overheard by some
Syrian soldiers of Vespasian’s
army. ‘The Jews too, stationed
on the towers of Jerusalem to
watch the discharge of the Ro-
man bhalliste, are said to have
warned the defendants of the
approach of the stones, by cry-
ing out in their native tongue—
ὁ ἰὸς ἔρχεται : Bell. v. vi.3. It was
in their native tongue that Jo-
sephus, by command of Titus,
addressed to the besieged the two
harangues recorded Bell. v. ix.
2.3.&c. and vi. ii. 1: and, Contra
Apionem, i. 9. the deserters or pri-
cording to St. John, in a subterraneons chamber at Jerusalem, when Julian was
attempting to rebuild the temple, A. D. 363; which may be compared with the
above particulars from Epiphanius, though { would not vouch for its truth.
The Gospel according to Nicodemus, of which there is a Latin version in the
Codex Apocryphus of Fabricius, and a Greek copy in the Auctarium Codicis
Apocryphi of Birch, professed to have been written by Nicodemus in Hebrew,
and thence translated into Greek, by one Ananias, in the reign of Theodosius the
younger and Flavius Valentinianus (Placidius Valentinianus the Third, emperor
_ of the west, when Theodosius the Second was reigning in the east.) This would
be sometime between A. D. 423. the first of Valentinianus, and A. D. 450. the last
of Theodosius. Vide Fabricius, Codex Apocryphus, i. 298. and Birch, Aucta-
rium, page 3 and 5. Cf. also, the long narrative in Suidas, beginning, Ἰησοῦς 6
Χριστὸς καὶ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, k.7.A. in the part relating to the codex or roll of the
priests, supposed to have heen still extant in the reign of Justinian, and pre-
served at Tiberias. Page 1751. A—C. m Eusebius, E. H. ii. xxiii. 64. A.
VOL. III. Z
998 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
There are extant in Irenzeus, and in Epiphanius,
some curious specimens of Hebrew forms of prayer ;
which were in use among certain heretical sects of
great antiquity".
Lucian tells us that the juggler Alexander, whose
history he relates in his Pseudomantis, made a point
of delivering his oracles in a barbarous jargon, re-
sembling Hebrew or Pheenician; the better to impose
upon his hearers °.
Plutarch, in his Life of Antony?, mentions the He-
brews by name, among other nations of the time, who
had all their own or peculiar languages; in which
however Cleopatra was accustomed to give each of
them audience.
On the sepulchre of Gordian the Third, U.C. 997,
A.D. 244, was inscribed a titulus or epitaph, Et Gre-
cis et Latinis et Persicis et Judaicis et Mgyptiacis lit-
teris, ut ab omnibus legeretur4.
From what Origen observes in his Epistle to Afri-
canus on the version of the two terms σχίνος and zpivos,
in the history of Susanna, it must be evident that He-
brew, or some dialect of it which he calls Syriac, was
still spoken in his time’. Contra Celsum, the same
writer observes, πῶς οὖν, TO μετὰ τοῦτο, οὐχὶ μάλλον TH
Σύρων ἐχρῶντο διαλέκτῳ, ἢ TH Φοινίκων" ἀλλὰ τὴν ‘EBpatda
ἑτέραν παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέρας συνεστήσαντο" ; This is spoken of
the Jews after the Exodus, it is true; but it implies
soners from among the Jews, at us, he alone understood what
the time of the siege, must have _ they said.
spoken Hebrew, if, as he tells
n Ireneus, i. cap. xviii. 2. go. 1. 5. gt. 1. 2. Epiphanius, i. 42. Osseni, iv.
© Pseudomantis, 13. Operum ii. 221. 1. 94. p Cap. 27. q Capitolinus, Vita,
34. Jerome in Chronico, ad ann. Gordiani vi. mentions that the bones of Gor-
dian, notwithstanding, were brought to Rome: and Capitolinus, Vita, loco citato,
that the inscription in question was erased by Licinius, because it reflected upon
the Philippi, from whom he himself was descended. For the site of the tomb, see
Ammianus Mare. xxiii. 5. 361. and Zosimus, iii. p. 163. Aurelius Victor, Epitome,
De Gordiano. r Operum i. 18, A—B. cap. 6. s Operum i. 451. B. iii. 6.
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine. 339
that they retained their own language ever afterwards :
and he adds elsewhere; καὶ yap μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο τὰ ᾿᾽]ου-
δαϊκὰ ὀνόματα, τῆς ᾿ Εἰβραίων ἐχόμενα διαλέκτου, ἤτοι ἀπὸ
τῶν γραμμάτων αὐτῶν ἐλήφθη, ἢ καὶ ἁπαξαπλῶς ἀπὸ τῶν
σημαινομένων ὑπὸ τῆς ᾿ΕἸβραίων φωνῆς.
Eusebius repeatedly asserts that the apostles, before
the gift of tongues, knew no language except their
native one; which he calls the Syriac: μᾶλλον δὲ ὅτι
καὶ βάρβαροι, καὶ τῆς Σύρων οὐ πλέον ἐπαΐοντες φωνῆς ----
μήτε λαλεῖν, μήτε ἀκούειν πλέον τῆς πατρίου φωνῆς ἐπιστα-
μένους .---καὶ πῶς, εἶπον ἂν of μαθηταὶ τῷ διδασκάλῳ πάντως
που ἀποκρινάμενοι, (that is, upon receiving the command
to go and teach all nations,) τοῦθ᾽ ἡμῖν ἔσται δυνατόν 3 πῶς
γὰρ Ῥωμαίοις, φέρε, κηρύξομεν ; πῶς de Αὐγυπτίοις δια-
λεχθησόμεθα; ποίᾳ δὲ χρησόμεθα λέξει πρὸς “Ἑλληνας,
ἄνδρες TH Σύρων ἐντραφέντες μόνη Pwvi 3 Πέρσας δὲ καὶ
᾿Αρμενίους καὶ Χαλδαίους καὶ Σκύθας καὶ ᾿Ινδοὺς, καὶ εἴ τινα
βαρβάρων γένοιτο ἔθνη, πῶς πείσομεν ; K,T.A.Y *,
The same writer tells us in his Ecclesiastical His-
tory, that the autographs of the letters, supposed to
have passed between Christ and Abgarus, existed in
the Syriac, (which we shall thus understand to mean
the vernacular Hebrew,) in the archives of Edessa 2.
Jerome, in a great multitude of instances, takes for
granted the existence of a vernacular Hebrew dialect,
even in his own time, which he sometimes calls Syriac ;
sometimes Punic: Lingua quoque Punica, que de
Hebreorum fontibus manare dicitur, proprie virgo
alma appellatur*—lIpsa est que hodie Syro sermone
* So Chrysostom likewise, οἱ ἀπόστολοι ; ὁ μίαν γλῶτταν ἔχων
Quod Christus sit Deus, Lib.i.7. τὴν ᾿Ιουδαϊκὴν, πῶς τὸν Σκύθην καὶ
Operum i. 567. A.B: καὶ πῶς τού- τὸν ᾿Ινδὸν καὶ τὸν Σαυρομάτην καὶ
τους, φησὶν, ἅπαντας ἐπεσπάσαντο τὸν Θρᾷκα ἔπεισε: K,T.X.
t Operum i. 528. A. iv. 34. ἃ Demonstratio Evangelica, iii. 5. 112. C.
x Ibid. 117. A. y Ibid. iii. 6. 136. A. 21, xiii. 32. A. B. 33. A. 35. B.
@ Operum iii. 71. ad principium, in Isai. vii. <
Z
340 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
vocatur Zoora, Hebreeo Segor, utroque parvula>’—
Alii... urbem Ostracinem intelligi volunt, et ceteras
juxta Rhinocoruram et Casium civitates: quas usque
hodie in Agypto lingua Chananitide, hoc est Syra,
loqui manifestum est: et putant e vicino Syros atque
Arabas a Nabuchodonosor in illam terram fuisse trans-
latosc—Ergo et nos...non possumus loqui lingua He-
brzea, sed lingua Chananitide, que inter Aigyptiam et
Hebrzeam media est, et Hebrzeze magna ex parte con-
finis'—Quod enim Greece dicitur χαῖρε, et Latine ave ;
hoe Hebraico Syroque sermone appellatur Salom lach :
‘ 2 \
sive Salom emmach, id est, pax tecum*®.
* In like manner, Ambrose,
Operum i. 17. A. Hexaémeron
i, vill, 29. quoting the Syriac
version of Genesis 1. 2. observes:
Denique Syrus, qui vicinus He-
breo est, et sermone consonat in
plerisque et congruit, sic habet,
&c. Thus too, Chrysostom, In
Genesim Sermo ix. 3: Operum
iv. 692. B: πολλὴ δὲ τῇ Σύρων
φωνῇ πρὸς τὴν τῶν Ἑβραίων γλῶτ.--
ταν ἡ συγγένεια: and speaking of
the meaning of the word Νῶε,
he observes, Ibid. 5. 696. C.
τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομα “EBpaikh λέγεται
γλώττῃ, καὶ ἑρμηνεύεται ὁ ἀναπαύων.
τὸ yap Nia τῇ Σύρων φωνῇ ἀνάπαυ--
σίς ἐστιν.
Sozomen, E. H. v. xv. 617.
B. explains the Syriac term
Bethelia, the name of a village
near Gaza, in his own time, to
be the same with Θεῶν οἰκητή--
ριον in Greek, like the ancient
Bethel in Hebrew: and _ vii.
xxix. 752. D. he tells us that
the site of the tomb of the pro-
phet Michaias, (Micaiah,) dis-
covered, as he supposes, A. D.
Ὁ Operum iii. 118. ad calcem, in Is. xv.
XX. d Ibid. 186. ad calcem, in Isai. xix.
cem, in Matt. x.
394. near Eleutheropolis in Pa-
lestine, went among the people
of the country, in their,own lan-
guage, by the name of vedoa-
peepava, that is, μνῆμα πιστὸν in
Greek.
In the Greek anthology we
meet with an epigram, in the
shape of an epitaph supposed to
be written and inscribed on the
tomb of Meleager of Gadara ;
the two last lines of which spe-
cify the word Σελὸμ in Syriac,
Αὔδονις in Punic or Phoenician,
and Χαῖρε in Greek, as equiva-
lent to each other. The epi-
taph is by Meleager on himself.
᾿Αλλ᾽ εἰ μὲν Σύρος ἐσσὶ, ΣΈΛΟΜ’
εἰ δ᾽ οὖν σύ γε Φοῖνιξ, | AYAONIZ:
εἰ δ᾽ Ἕλλην, ΧΑΙΡΕ" τὸ δ᾽ αὐτὸ
φράσον. Anthologia, i. 38. Me-
jeager, ¢xxvi.
Socrates informs us of Seve-
rianus of Gabala (a Syrian city)
who flourished A. D. 400, con-
temporarily with Chrysostom,
that with all his learning and
eloquence, he never could mas-
ter the pronunciation of Greek :
ς Ibid. 131. ad principiwm, in Isai.
e Operum iv. Pars ia. 36. ad cal-
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine. 341
Theodorit, Greecorum affectuum Curatio: ἡμεῖς δὲ
τῶν ἀποστολικῶν Kal προφητικῶν δογμάτων τὸ κράτος
ἐναργῶς ἐπιδείκνυμεν. πᾶσα “γὰρ ἡ ὑφήλιος τῶνδε τῶν λόγων
ἀνάπλεως. καὶ ἡ ᾿Ε βραίων φωνὴ οὐ μόνον εἰς τὴν ᾿Ελλήνων
μετεβλήθη, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰς τὴν Ρωμαίων καὶ Αἰγυπτίων καὶ
Περσῶν καὶ ᾿Ινδῶν καὶ ᾿Αρμενίων καὶ Σκυθῶν καὶ Σαυρο-
ματῶν, καὶ συλλήβδην εἰπεῖν, εἰς πάσας τὰς γλώττας αἷς
ἅπαντα τὰ ἔθνη κεχρημένα διατελεῖ,
The same writer, explaining the word μαραναθὰ, ob-
serves 8, τοῦτο ov τῆς ‘EGBpaias, as τινες ὑπέλαβον, ἀλλὰ
τῆς Σύρων ἐστὶ φωνῆς" ἑρμηνεύεται de, ὁ Κύριος ἦλθε.
The Alexandrine mob called the poor buffoon, whom
they dressed up in mockery of Herod Agrippa, as Philo
Judzeus tells us", by this name of Μάρις : οὕτως δέ φασι
τὸν κύριον ὀνομάζεσθαι παρὰ Σύροις. But they would
not have so called him, in ridicule and contempt of
Herod Agrippa, if the same word had not also been a
vernacular Hebrew term.
Laurentius, De Mensibus, in an extract relating to
the death of Julian, the emperor, tells us in like man-
ner }, εἷς δὲ ἐκ τῆς Περσικῆς φάλαγγος, τῶν λεγομένων Σα-
βακηνῶν, ἐκ τῆς ἁλουργίδος βασιλέα ὑπολαβὼν, ἀνέκραγε
πατρίως, Μαλχὰν, οἱονεὶ, βασιλεύς *.
ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἑλληνιστὶ φθεγγόμενος, liest to the latest times. See
Σύρος ἢν τὴν φωνήν : EK. H. vi. xi.
316. D. Cf. Sozomen, E. H. viii.
x. 770. A. The history of the
compositions of Bardesanes Sy-
rus, and those of his son Har-
monius, in the second and third
century ; and of those of Ephraim
Syrus, a native of Nisibis, and
inhabitant of Edessa, in the
early part of the fourth century,
is a clear proof of the distinct-
ness of the Syriac from the
Greek language, from the ear- |
f Operum iv. 839. Disputatio v. Cf. ibid. goo. Disputatio viii.
h Operum ii. 522. 1.47. Adversus Flaccum.
ad Cor. xvi. 21.
Sozomen, E. H. iii. xvi. 525.
A.—526. D. and Cf. Theodorit,
E. H. iv. xxix. 192.
* Thus too, Eunapius, Vite
Sophistarum, Πορφύριος, page 7,
explains the original name of
Porphyry, which was Malchus:
Μάλχος δὲ κατὰ τὴν Σύρων πόλιν ὃ
Πορφύριος ἐκαλεῖτο τὰ πρῶτα,
(τοῦτο δὲ δύναται βασιλέα λέγειν")
«,t.X. Porphyry was born in
Tyre.
€ iii. 285. In 1.
liv. 75.
ἄς,
342 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
It is recorded of Mithridates*, that he spoke twenty-
two different languages, as reigning over so many dif-
ferent nations. Yet his dominions embraced the prin-
cipal parts of the East in which the Greeks were set-
tled, and Grecian empires had been founded.
Strabo informs us that, according to some authorities,
seventy, and according to others, three hundred dif-
ferent nations, inhabitants of mount Caucasus, all
speaking a distinct language, were wont to meet and
to trade together at Dioscurias on the Pontus! In
the time of Pliny, also, though as a mart, it was con-
siderably decayed, yet business was still transacted
there by the help of one hundred and thirty inter-
preters; which implies as many distinct languages™.
Strabo, de Mysis: μαρτυρεῖν δὲ καὶ τὴν διάλεκτον" μιξο-
λύδιον “γάρ πως εἶναι, καὶ μιξοφρύγιον---ἀ Cibyratis:
τέτταρσι δὲ “γλώτταις ἐχρώντο οἱ Κιβυράται, τῇ [Πἰσιδικῇ,
TH “Σολύμων, TH ᾿Ἑλληνίδι, τῇ Addwy®.
Xenophon, Ephesiaca®: the Καππαδοκῶν φωνὴ, as
such, is mentioned, as that of Lycaonia is, in the Acts,
xiv.11. In Hispania Betica, though the native lan-
guage was extinct in Strabo’s time, yet it had been su-
perseded not by the Greek, but by the Latin’. In
Phrygia, also, and the contiguous parts of Asia, there
was still a native dialect4; though the Latin language
had done more to supersede it than the Greek™*.
Gaul must have retained a language of its own, or
* The continued existence of Sozomen, Εἰ. H. vii. xvii. 730. C.
the Phrygian, as a distinct lan- Suidas, Εὐοῖ σαβοῖ, observes upon
guage, as much as the Gothic, is _ these words, that they were
recognised by Socrates, E.H.v. Phrygian, denoting in Greek
Xxili. 291. D. as late as A. ἢ. τοὺς μύστας.
394. Cf. Ibid. 292. B: and also
k Valerius Max. viii. vii. 16. Pliny, H. N. vii. 24. xxv. 3. Auctor De Viris Il-
lustribus, Ixxvi. Quintilian, xi. ii. 50. Solinus, Polyhistor, cap. i. δ. 109. Aulus
Gellius, xvii, 17. 1 Strabo xi. 2. δ. τό. 4οο. Pliny, H. N. vi. 5. Yet it was
still a place of note in Ammianus Marcellinus’ time : see xxii. 8. 313. n xii.
7. δ. 3. 204. xiii. 4. δ. 17. 403. Odi, 254. Ρ iii. 2.404. 4 xi. 4. δ. 6. 169.
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine, 343
Philostratus would not record it of Phavorinus", ὅθεν
ὡς παράδοξα ἐπεχρησμῴδει τῷ ἑαυτοῦ βίῳ τρία ταῦτα, Va-
λάτης ὧν Ἑλληνίζειν, κ᾽, τ. Χ. Trenzeus speaks of it as
existing in his own time’. Jerome, Pref. lib. 2% in
-Epistolam ad Galatas, observes, Massiliam Phoczei con-
diderunt: quos ait Varro trilingues esse, quod et Greece
loquantur, et Latine et Gallice'. And again, Unum
est quod inferimus, et promissum in exordio reddimus,
Galatas, excepto sermone Grzco, quo omnis Oriens lo-
quitur*, propriam linguam eamdem pene habere quam
Treviros, nec referre, si aliqua exinde corruperint;
quum et Aphri Pheenicum linguam, nonnulla ex parte
mutaverint, et ipsa Latinitas et regionibus quotidie
mutetur et tempore Τα.
Corsica, in like manner, had its own dialect when
Seneca was in banishment there; Cogita..quam non
facile Latina ei verba homini succurrant, quem barba-
* That is, not so as to super-
sede every other language in the
East, but so as to be understood
and spoken, more or less, even
where other languages might be
spoken too, and perhaps better
understood.
+ Apuleius, De Magia O-
ratio, ii. 102. bears witness
that the Punic dialect had
been superseded in parts of Af-
rica at least, neither by the
Greek nor by the Latin. This
oration was pronounced in the
reign of Antoninus Pius. The
Latin, Greek, and Punic are
mentioned in the Epitome of
Aurelius Victor, De Severo, as
contemporary languages, yet dis-
tinct from each other: Latinis
litteris sufficienter instructus.
r Vite Sophistarum, i. 493. D. Phavorinus.
t Operum iv. pars i. 253, 254,
ad Lib. i.
Grecis sermonibus eruditus. Pu-
nica eloquentia promptior, quippe
genitus apud Leptim provincie
Africe. There is a well known
anecdote of Augustin’s, which re-
lates how his father having acci-
dentally overheard the conver-
sation of two Carthaginian pea-
sants, was forcibly struck by the
pronunciation of the word for
three in that language, resem-
bling salus in Latin, as the cor-
responding word in the Hebrew
really does. Procopius, too, (De
Bello Vandalico, ii. 10.) testifies
to the continued existence of
the same language among the
Maurusii or Moors of his own
time ; which was the reign of
Justinian, A. D. 527. and up-
wards.
8 Opera, 3, ]. 23—25. Preefatio
ἃ Ibid. 255, 256.
Z 4
944 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
rorum inconditus et barbaris quoque humanioribus gra-
vis fremitus circumsonet*.
The Greek language in many instances, so far from
superseding the native or aboriginal dialects, had fallen
a victim to their predominance, and become extinct.
Athenzeus mentions an example of this change in the
case of the settlers at Posidonium, or Pestum, in Italy :
from Aristoxenus, ἐν τοῖς Συμμικτοῖς Σιυμποτικοῖςῦ. Dio-
nysius Halicarnassensis observes, ἐπεὶ ἄλλοι γε συχνοὶ
(τῶν ᾿Εὐλλήνων) ἐν βαρβάροις οἰκοῦντες, ὀλίγου χρόνου διελ-
θόντος, ἅπαν τὸ ᾿᾿ἰλληνικὸν ἀπέμαθον, ὡς μήτε φωνὴν ‘EKA-
Adda φθέγγεσθαι, μήτε ἐπιτηδεύμασιν Ελλήνων ἔτι χρῆ-
σθαι, μήτε θεοὺς τοὺς αὐτοὺς νομίζειν, μήτε νόμους τοὺς ἐπι-
εικεῖς, ᾧ μάλιστα διαλλάσσει φύσις “EAAas βαρβάρου, μήτε
τῶν ἄλλων συμβολαίων (μηδ᾽ ὅ τι εἰσίν) And he cites
the instance of the Achzans, settled in the neighbour-
hood of the Pontus, ὅλον μὲν ἐκ τοῦ ᾿Εὐλληνικωτάτου ye-
VOMEVOL, βαρβάρων δὲ συμπάντων νῦν (ὄντων) ἀγριώτατοιξ *,
Ovid says the same of the people of Tomos, also on
the Pontus, though Greeks originally; and of himself
who had lived so long among them.
Nesciaque est vocis quod barbara lingua Latine ;
Grajaque quod Getico victa loquela sono.
Tristium v. ii. 67.
Of this
* The sophist Himerius, Ope-
ra, 480. Oratio v. 6. observes of
the city of Thessalonica in Ma-
cedonia, in his own time (the
reign of Julian more particu-
larly): πρέπει (δὲ) ταύτῃ τῆς τε
ἄλλης ἀρετῆς εἵνεκα, ἀτὰρ οὐχ ἥκι-
στα τῆς σπουδῆς ἣν ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ παρ--
έχεται, μέση ἐν μέσοις κειμένη μι-
κροῦ πᾶσιν ὡς ἐν κύκλῳ, τοῖς τὴν
x Operum i. Ad Polybium, xxxvii. 7. ad fin.
φωνὴν βαρβαρίζουσιν.
number he reckons up the Poeo-
nians, Illyrians, Meesians, Thra-
cians: in the midst of whom,
says he, the city itself, μόνη καθ-
ἄπερ τινὰ χρυσοῦν ὀμφαλὸν τὴν
Ἑλλάδα γλῶτταν ἀνέχουσα, καθαρὰν
ταύτην φυλάττει τῆς ἐπιμιξίας τῆς
γείτονος.
Y xiv. 31. z Ant. Rom.
1. 89. 231. 1.8. Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 8. 313.
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine. 345
In paucis remanent Grajez vestigia lingue :
Hee quoque jam Getico barbara facta sono.
Ullus in hoc vix est populo, qui forte Latine
Quezlibet e medio reddere verba queat.
Ibid. v. vii. sr.
And this being the case, we shall know what allow-
ance to make for the rhetorical flourish of Aristides,
where he is complimenting the Athenians on the uni-
versal prevalence of the Attic dialect*: πᾶσαν τὴν “γῆν
τύχῃ τινὶ θείᾳ ζῆλος ἐπέρχεται τῆς ὑμετέρας σοφίας καὶ
συνηθείας, καὶ ταύτην μίαν φωνὴν κοινὴν ἅπαντες τοῦ γένους
ἐνόμισαν, καὶ Ov ὑμῶν ὁμόφωνος μὲν πᾶσα γέγονεν ἡ οἰκου-
μένη, ἴδοις δ᾽ av καὶ τοὺς ἡνιόχους, καὶ τοὺς νομέας. καὶ τοὺς
ἀπὸ τῆς θαλάττης ζῶντας, καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἔθνη, καὶ κατὰ
πόλεις καὶ κατὰ χώρας, τῆς παρ᾽ ὑμῶν φωνῆς ἐχομένους,
καὶ πειρωμένους τῆς “γῆς ἀνθάπτεσθαι, καθάπερ τοὺς νεῖν
ἀδυνάτους.
It was, however, in the East, as such; in Egypt,
Syria, and Upper Asia; that the aboriginal or native
dialects had maintained themselves most securely,
against the encroachments of any foreign and exotic
language. The existence of the native dialect in Egypt,
in his time, is implicitly attested by Aristides®*. Am-
mianus Marcellinus observes upon the names of the
cities founded by Seleucus .... quarum ad presens
plerzeque licet Graecis nominibus appellentur, quee iis-
* Philostorgius, E. H. iii. 6.
479. A. asserts that a colony of
Syrians, planted by Alexander
the Great (about B. C. 332.)
on the borders of Egypt and
Ethiopia, retained their original
language in his own time, the
end of the fourth century. The
Hieroglyphica of Horapollo were
written in the native language
of Egypt, and translated into
a Oratio xiii. 294. 15.
the present Greek, by one Phi-
lip; though the writer himself,
Horapollo, according to Suidas,
flourished only ἐπὶ Θεοδοσίου.
Vide the short title prefixed to
the work. Egyptian words oc-
cur in it repeatedly. The con-
tinued existence of the native
Egyptian is attested by Por-
phyry, De Abstinentia, iv. 9.
324, 325. iv. 10. 329.
Ὁ Oratio xlviii. Αἰγύπτιος, 443. line 14.
346 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
dem ad arbitrium imposita sunt conditoris, primogenia
tamen nomina non amittunt, que eis Assyria lingua
institutores veteres indiderunt®. The story which Plu-
tarch records, of what happened in the court of Par-
thia, after the death of Crassus, and at the time of the
theatrical representations which were going on when
the news of that event was brought there, or insti-
tuted because of it, is a proof that the knowledge of
Greek was no common accomplishment in Armenia or
Parthia‘*. He speaks also of the Parthian and Syriac
languages as such, in his Life of Antony®. Longinus
was Zenobia’s instructor in Greek; yet Syriac was the
court or state language of Palmyra, in which all official
communications were made‘: and according to Epi- ᾿
phanius, the purest dialect in Syria was the Palmy-
rene’. The disputatio of Archelaus and Manes, held
about A. D. 276, was written originally in the Sy-
riach+. Archelaus in one part of it addresses his ad-
versary in these terms: Persa barbare, non Gracorum
linguz, non AXgyptiorum, non Romanorum, non ullius
alterius linguz scientiam habere potuisti; sed Chal-
dzeorum solum, que ne in numerum quidem aliquem
ducitur; nullum alium loquentem audire potes'.
Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana,
supposes his hero endued with the gift of tongues *:
* Cf, Ammianus Marcellinus,
xviii. 5. and Procopius, De Bello
Persico, ii. 2. and De Bello Got-
thico, iii. 26. We might add,
that Latin was as little under-
stood in the same quarters. Tiva
yap ἔσεσθαι συμφωνίαν ἐν αὐτοῖς,
μήτε τῆς ἀλλήλων φωνῆς συνιεῖσιν,
κ΄. το A. was the answer returned
c xiv. 8.42. 4 Crassus, 32. 33.
g Operum i. 629. C. Manichei, xiii.
De SS. Ecclesiasticis, Lxxii.
p. 25. A. B.
© Cap. 46.
i Cap. 36: Reliquie Sacre, iv. 224.
by the Parthian king Artaba-
nus, A.D. 216 or 217. to the
proposal of the Roman emperor
Antoninus (Caracalla) to marry
his daughter. Herodian, iv. 19.
+ Archelaus was bishop of Ca-
schara, a city of Mesopotamia.
Socrates, E. H. i. xxii. 56. Ὁ.
f Vopiscus, Aurelianus, 30.
h Jerome, Operum iv. Pars ii*. 120.
ki. 13.
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine. 347
καὶ μὴν καὶ τὰς φωνὰς τῶν βαρβάρων ὁπόσαι εἰσίν" εἰσὶ δὲ
ἄλλη μὲν ᾿Αρμενίων, ἄλλη δὲ Μήδων τε καὶ Περσῶν, ἄλλη
δὲ Καδουσίων: μεταλαμβάνω πάσας. He makes him put
this question to Bardanes, king of Parthia: ὦ βασιλεῦ,
ἔφη. τὴν φωνὴν THY ᾿Ἑλλάδα πᾶσαν "γινώσκεις, ἢ σμικρὰ av-
τῆς:
also implies that a king of Parthia would not necessa-
rily be able to speak Greek, where he observes in his
ἱεροὶ λόγοι, in an account of one of his dreams, προσι-
.. πᾶσαν, εἶπεν, ἴσα TH ἐγχωρίῳ ταύτη 1, Aristides
ὄντων δὲ τῶν περὶ τὸν Βολόγεσον, φωνὴν εἶναι οὐκ ὀλίγην,
καὶ δοκεῖν αὐτοὺς ἑλληνίζειν m. Dio Chrysostom, in like
manner, enumerates the Phoenician as one of the prin-
cipal languages, along with the Persian, Greek, or
Syrian: καὶ νομίζουσι τὸν πλεῖστα γράμματα εἰδότα 11ερ-
σικά τε καὶ Ἑλληνικὰ καὶ τὰ Σύρων καὶ τὰ Φοινίκων...
τοῦτον σοφώτατον----ὥσπερ οἱ δύο ἢ τρία Περσικὰ εἰδότες
ῥήματα » Μηδικὰ ἢ ᾿Ασσύρια, τοὺς ἀγνοοῦντας ἐξαπα-
τῶσιν 2 *,
Josephus tells us of an occasion when Titus ad-
dressed the people of the Jews by an interpreter, which
he says was a mark of superiority®: and so it might
be, if it is thereby implied that he spoke to them in
Latin. But it by no means follows, that the use of
this interpreter was to translate Latin into Greek, for
their better understanding of it; and not into Hebrew,
or the native language of the country. Paulus A‘mi-
lius addressed the conquered Macedonians by an inter-
preter likewiseP, in order, as we are told expressly, to
* Hlian, De Natura Anima- cognises the Indian, Scythian,
lium, v.51: 6 γοῦν Σκύθης ἄλλως
φθέγγεται, καὶ ὁ Ἰνδὸς ἄλλως, καὶ ὁ
Αἰθίοψ ἔχει φωνὴν συμφυῆ, καὶ οἱ
Σάκαι, φωνὴ δὲ Ἑλλὰς ἄλλη, καὶ ‘Po-
μαία ἄλλη, κὶ, τ. Χλ. Porphyry, Περὶ
ἀποχῆς ζώων, ill. 3. 218, 219. re-
li. 20. pag. 43. A.
© De Bello, vi. vi. 2.
ἸῺ 1, xxiii. 454. 4.
P Livy, xlv. 29.
Thracian, Syrian, and Persian,
as current languages in his own
time, (the latter half of the third
century,) just as much as the
Greek.
Ὦ Oratio iv. 151. 35: Χ. 304. 24.
948
Appendix. Dissertation Third.
translate what he himself spoke in Latin, intelligibly
to them in Greek. Constantine addressed the assem-
bled bishops, at the opening of the council of Nice, in
Latin, translated by an interpreter4*; though both
he was able to speak Greek, and they all understood
it. But Latin was the court or state language, and
the medium of communication on all great occasions 7.
* It is an observation of
Chrysostom’s, Operum vii. 756.
D. Homilia in Matt. Ixxviii. 4:
καθάπερ yap ὅταν Ῥωμαῖος ὧν ὁ
κριτὴς τύχῃ, οὐκ ἀκούσεται ἀπο-
λογουμένου τοῦ οὐκ εἰδότος οὕτω
φθέγγεσθαι, καὶ, τ.λ.
+ The Latin language, under
any circumstances, would be
more agreeable to a Roman
ear than the Greek. ‘Tiberius
forbad the use of Greek in pub-
lic discussions, or public docu-
ments. Juvenal tells his friend,
whom he had invited to dine
with him, that if he had occa-
sion to call his servant, he must
do it in Latin: for he had
not been taught Greek. Cum
posces, posce Latine. xi. 148.
And Ovid, while he supposes
the knowledge of both languages,
gives the preference to the La-
tin: Sive tamen Graja scierit,
sive ille Latina | Voce loqui;
certe gratior hujus οὐ. ‘Tri-
stium 111. ΧΙ]. 39.
The knowledge of Latin, as
was natural—(that being the
language of the lords and mas-
ters of the greatest part of man-
_kind—) was become in the time
of Plutarch almost an universal
accomplishment: ὡς δοκεῖ μοι περὶ
Ῥωμαίων λέγειν, ὧν μὲν λόγῳ νῦν
ὁμοῦ τι πάντες ἄνθρωποι χρῶνται.
Platonice questiones, Operum
x. 198.
Constantine’s circular letter
addressed to each of the pro-
vinces of the empire, after the
defeat of Licinius, A. D. 323.
‘was written in Greek and Latin:
Eusebius, Vita Constantini, ii.
xxiii. 454. Ὁ. Cf. Eusebius, Vita
Constantini, 11. xxiii. et que se-
quuntur: 11. xlvii. 466: iv. xix.
and xx. 535. B.C: xxxii. 541.
D: xxxv. 543. C.
Socrates, Εἰ. H. ii. xx. ror. B.
tells us the western bishops did
not understand Greek, or at
least not so well as Latin;
which was one reason why they
rejected the formulary of faith
set forth by the second council
of Antioch, (about A. D. 345.
see cap. xix. just before,) and
got together the council of Ser-
dica, A. D. 347. to draw up an-
other for themselves. Cf. also,
ibid. xxx. 121. D. of the pro-
ceedings of the synod of Sir-
mium, A. D. 351: and 126. B.
of Photinus’ double edition of
the same work, in Greek and
Latin respectively.
Eunapius, Vite Sophistarum,
101. Nymphidianus, mentions
that the emperor Julian ap-
pointed the sophist Nymphidi-
anus his Greek secretary: ταῖς
ἐπιστολαῖς ἐπιστήσας, ὅσαι διὰ τῶν
“Ἑλληνικῶν ἑρμηνεύονται λόγων: the
proper inference from which
words is, that the Greek epistles
q Eusebius, Vita Constantini, iii. 12. 13.
On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine, 349
From the immense extent of the Roman dominions,
and the variety of persons or causes which might come
before Roman magistrates, an interpreter was a ne-
cessary appendage of their office. Pliny, speaking of
Trajan’s second consulship, and of his having to give
audience to people of all countries and languages,
writes thus": Augebant majestatem preesidentis di-
versi postulantium habitus, ac dissonz voces, raraque
sine interprete oratio. Otherwise the use of an inter-
preter, in a given instance, proves nothing, except that
one or each of the parties for whom he is required, is
ignorant of the other’s language. The address of Ti-
ridates to Nero, U. C. 819. was translated to the people
present by an interpreter’; and therefore, we may pre-
sume was delivered by Tiridates in Parthian.
I do not think any good argument, to shew the pre-
valence of the Greek language in Judea, can be de-
rived from the frequent mention in Josephus of πόλεις
᾿Ελληνίδες as such. These cities are comparatively few
in question were versions of a
certain part of the imperial cor-
respondence ; which consequent-
ly must have been carried on
generally in some other lan-
guage (doubtless the Latin)
though part of it required to be
turned into Greek. Sozomen,
too, Εἰ. H. ix. i. 800. A. B. enu-
merates it particularly among
the other accomplishments of
Pulcheria, the sister of Theodo-
sius the younger, at the time of
her father’s death (Arcadius)
A.D. 408. that she was able to
speak and write both Greek and
Latin with equal fluency.
Chrysostom has an observa-
tion in his IV. Homily on the
Second to Timothy, chap. ii. §. 3.
r Panegyricus, 56. §. 6.
which illustrates the contempt
entertained by many of the Ro-
mans of any language but their
own. “ Paul,” says he, “ was a
“ Cilician. He knew no lan-
“guage but the Hebrew, the
“most universally held in con-
*“ tempt by all, especially by the
“ Italians. No form of speech,
‘* either among Greeks or the
** Barbarians, is so little esteem-
“ed by them as the Syriac ; to
‘“‘ which the Hebrew is very
“nearly akin. For if many of
‘‘ them,” he continues, “ profess
“to despise so wonderful and
“ beautiful a language as the
‘‘ Greek, how much more the
“ Hebrew.” Operum xi. 682.
E. F.
5 Suetonius, Nero, 13.
850 Appendix. Dissertation Third.
in number; and in every instance they were situated
on the sea coast, in the way of trade and commerce, (the
very reverse of the Jewish, see Contra Apionem,i. 12.),
or on the confines of Judea and the neighbouring re-
gions, Syria or Egypt. They are such as Gaza, Azo-
tus, Ascalon, Czsarea, Hippus, Gadara, (cf. Ant. Jud.
ΧΙ]. xv. 4.) &c. the inhabitants of which were either
all, or by far the greater part of them, properly Gen-
tiles; as much distinguished from the native Jews in
religion and manners, as they probably were in lan-
guage. Greek was very likely to be spoken in all these
places: but though we were to admit this to the full-
est extent, it would prove nothing of the rest of the
country; Judza Proper, Idumza, Samaria, Galilee,
and Perea. The language spoken in twenty or thirty
places; peculiarly situated as these were, and peopled
by a mixed or mongrel race; can prove nothing of the
great body of the people, the pure and unadulterated
stock of the Jews, who were dispersed in the thousand
towns and villages which Palestine is said to have
contained. ‘These were occupied by millions of souls,
proverbially tenacious of old usages, and averse to
change or innovation; and who at this period of their
history were notorious for nothing so much as a rooted
antipathy to every thing Gentile; an antipathy which
would extend to the languages of the Gentiles, as well
as to any other peculiarity of theirs; and among these
languages, to that in particular which was the most
generally diffused of all, and the most distinctive of a
Gentile as such—viz. the Greek. Cf. on this subject,
Mr. Biscoe’s Dissertations on the Acts ; cap. iv.
APPENDIX.
erstellen gti
DISSERTATION IV.
On the reigns and succession of the Maccabean princes.
Vide Dissertation v. vol. 1. 248. Article in.
In the details of the hundred and twenty-six years,
which Josephus assigns to the Asmonean Dynasty, he
has implicitly followed the first of Maccabees ; so much
80, 85 in many instances to copy its expressions. The
notices of time, supplied by this book, are numerous:
nor between them and the accounts of Josephus is
there any material difference, except what concerns the
alleged time of the death of Judas Maccabzeus; which
the former place before, and the latter after, the death
of the high-priest Alcimus. But this is a discrepancy
which affects only the subdivisions of the period in
question. In the general outline both our authorities
are agreed; and, as far as they proceed in common,
the succession of the Asmonzean or Maccabzean princes
may be thus exhibited :
ὶ : JEre Sel. B.. Ga
Antiochus Eupator makes peace with
Judas Maccabzeus?. 150. 163—162.
Jonathan the brother of Judas, as-
sumes the high-priesthood at the feast
of Tabernacles>. 160. 153—152.
He dies in the winter season¢. -- er
Simon, his brother, is confirmed by
Demetrius4. 170. 143—142.
He is assassinated in the spring®. 177. 136—135.
a1 Mace. vi. 16.20—61. > x.21. 0 xiii. 22,23. ἃ xiii. 41. Jos. De Bell. i.
1.2. Θ 1 Macc. xvi. 14—17. Jos. Ant. Jud. xiii. vii. 4.
352 Appendix. Dissertation Fourth.
The history of the first of Maccabees expires with
this event; but the narrative is continued by Josephus
as follows:
The first year of John Hyrcanus, as dated from as
the death of his father Simon, must be dated from
the spring. 135.
His son, Aristobulus I. began to reignf. 102.
The brother of this Aristobulus, Alexander Jan-
neeus, began to reign’. 102.
His wife, Queen Alexandra, began to reign}. 75.
Upon these statements I have to make the following
observations. |
The length of the reign of Hyrcanus, which bears
date from the time of his father’s death, viz. the ele-
venth month in the Jewish year, that is, from the
spring, B.C. 135. was thirty-three years in all. The
duration of thirty years, assigned to it by Josephus
elsewhere'!, must be dated from his accession to the
high-priesthood, B.C. 132*. The years of his reign
were full years: beginning and ending with the
spring; for his father died in the spring ; and his son
Aristobulus, who assumed the diadem three months
after a feast of the Passover, or before a feast of Ta-
bernacles*, must have come to the throne in the spring.
And as Aristobulus reigned only until some little time
after the feast of Tabernacles in question, Jannzus
would necessarily succeed him in the course of the
same year. Janneus also must have died about the
middle or the end of some year; for he is said to have
* Hyrcanus’ accession to the viii. 2. also, Olymp. 162, is
high-priesthood might be con- said to synchronize with the
sidered in one sense, the first first of Hyrcanus. Olymp. 162.
of his reign. Ant. Jud. xiii. 1. answers to B. C. 132.
f Ant. Jud. xiii. x. 7. xi. τ. De Bell. i. ii. 8. & Ibid. xiii. xi. 1. 3. xii. τ᾿
De Bell. i. 111, r—6. iv. 1. - ἢ Ibid. xiii. xv. 5. De Bell. 1, ἵν. 8: γ. 1. i Ant.
oe k Ibid. xiii. xi. 1. De Bell. i. iii, 1. 2.
Reigns and succession of the Maccabean princes. 353
reigned twenty-seven years*; and he died either during,
or just after, the season of military operations in his
last year. If he reigned twenty-seven years complete,
this would be some time towards the end of B. C. 75;
if twenty-seven years current only, it might be about
the same time B.C. 76. His successor queen Alexan-
dra, at least, (who is said to have reigned nine years
in all!,) could not have been alive later than the begin-
ning of B. C. 66; for the capture of Jerusalem, on the
tenth of Tisri, B.C.-63, is indissolubly fixed to the
fourth year current after her death. That she died
either B. C. 67. exeunte, or B. C. 66. zneunte, may be
collected from the mention of military operations, so
soon after her decease™, if not from the allusion to the
passover"; which might be the first after that event. I
conclude, then, that the reigns of Jannzus and of Alex-
andra in succession occupied, both together, the inter-
mediate period from B.C. 102. ab auctumno to B.C. 66.
ineuntem ; a period of thirty-five years, and about four
months, in all; which was probably so distributed be-
tween them, that twenty-six years and the odd months
belonged to Jannzus, and the remaining nine to Alex-
andra, To proceed, then, with the details of the account
as. before.
The statement® that Hyrcanus the Second, the son
of this Alexandra, entered on the high-priesthood,
Olym. 177. 3. Coss. Q. Hortensio, et Q. Cecilio
Metello Cretico, U. C. 685, (though both these notes
of time may correspond with each other, and with
B.C. 69.) must still be understood with a certain lati-
tude; viz. of some appointment in that year (if at all)
before his mother’s death, not of any appointment
after it. I cannot help suspecting, however, some in-
k Ant. xiii. xv. 5. De Bello, i. iv. 8. 1 Ant. xiii. xvi. 6. De Bello, i. v. 4.
m Ant. xiv. i. 2. De Bello, i. vi. 1, 2. n Ant. xiv. ii. I, 2. O xiv. i, 2.
VOL. IIT. Aa
354 Appendix. Dissertation Fourth.
accuracy in the statement itself. It is repeatedly as-
serted elsewhere that Hyrcanus was high-priest during
the whole of his mother’s reign ?; which began long
before B.C. 69: and we saw in Dissertation v. vol. i.
page 261. that between B.C. 37. U.C. 717. and his ori-
ginal or primary appointment to that office, forty cur-
rent years (which, however, were one or two years in
excess) were supposed to have elapsed. This would date
his appointment as far back as B. C. 75 or 76.
The true date, then, of Hyrcanus’s accession to the
priesthood, as such, before his mother’s death, was
B.C. 75; that of his accession to the throne along
with the priesthood after her death4, was B.C. 66.
The mistatemeut of Josephus I conjecture to have
been produced by forgetting that Hyrcanus was simply
reinstated, B.C.63, four current years after his mother’s
death ; and not originally appointed, B. C. 69. four cur-
rent years before it.
There is no difficulty as to what remains. As the
first accession of Hyrcanus is to be dated about the
passover ", B. C. 66, so his second appointment, on the
dispossession of Aristobulus the younger, is to be dated
from the tenth of Tisri, B. C. 055. From this time to
the second capture of Jerusalem by Herod and Sosius,
U.C. 717. B.C. 37. there were twenty-six years com-
plete*; of which the first twenty-three, viz. from B.C. 63.
to B.C. 40. will belong to Hyrcanus, before his second
* Josephus calls this interval
one of twenty-seven years, κζ΄.
érn—a number, however, which
might easily be substituted in his
text for κς΄. ἔτη. Syncellus, quot-
ing from the fourteenth book of
the Antiquities, i. 580, line 8.
has κζ΄. also. But this cannot be
thetrue reading, unless, by alapse
p Ant. xiii. xvi. 2: xv. vi. 4: xx. x: De Bello, i. v. 1.
r Ant. xiv. ii. 1, 2.
De Bello, i. vi. 1.
of memory, Josephus dated from
the Passover, instead of the
Feast of Tabernacles, B. C. 63:
in which case, there would be
twenty-seven current years from
that date to the Feast of Taber-
nacles, B. ©. 37. Vide Ant. Jud.
XIV. XVI. 4.
q Ant. Jud. xiv. i. 2.
5 Ibid. iv. 3, 4.
Reigns and succession of the Maccahbean princes. 355
dispossession ; and the remainder, from B.C. 40. to
B.C. 37. will belong to Antigonus the son of Aristo-
bulus, ,before the extinction of the Asmonzan Dy-
nasty. Vide the places noted in the margin *.
t Ant, Jud. xx. x. xiv. vi. I: xili. 3,
Aag
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION V.
On the time of the admission of Caius Cesar to the Councils
of Augustus.
Vide Dissertation v. vol. 1. page 281. last line.
AMONG those who were present at the council when
Augustus decided on the will of Herod, both in the
Antiquities of Josephus, and in the War, Caius Cesar
is particularly mentioned*. The privilege of being
present at the public councils, after a certain age, was
conceded by Augustus to the sons of senators gene-
rally>. In the case of his two adopted sons, Caius and
Lucius Cesar, the Ancyran monument informs us°,
Honoris mei causa senatus populusque Romanus an-
num quintum et decimum agentes consules (606) de-
signavit, ut eum magistratum inirent post quinquen-
nium, et ex eo die quo deducti sunt in forum ut inter-
essent consiliis publicis decrevit senatus.
Caius Cesar was born U. C. 794: and very pro-
bably in the latter half of that year: for Agrippa his
father was not married to Julia until after his return
from Asia the year before. He would, consequently,
be in his fifteenth year about the usual time of holding
the consular comitia, U.C. 748: and if he was de-
signed consul at that time, when he had just completed
his fourteenth, or had just entered on his fifteenth
year, the testimony of the Ancyran marble would be
consistent with that of the Marmor, quoted by cardinal
a Ant. xvii. ix. 5. De Bello, ii. ii. 4. > Dio, lvi. 17. Suetonius, Augustus, 38.
ce Apud Tacitum, iv. 841. ad Dio, liv. 8.
Admission of Caius Cesar to the Councils of Augustus. 357
Norisius, De Cenotaphiis Pisanis*. He appears, ac-
cordingly, in the Fasti, as consul ordimarius, U.C.'754:
that is, 7 the sixth year after the year of his designa-
tion, exclusive.
From this time forward, the presence of Caius, as
the elder of Augustus’ two adopted sons, as heir appa-
rent of the empire, and as consul elect—at all delibera-
tions of any importance, might naturally be expected.
Yet it is seen from Diof that even after this time, Au-
gustus had so much reason to be dissatisfied with the
young prince’s conduct, as purposely to keep him back
from many distinctions, to which he would otherwise
have been admitted. ;
It is implied in Dio®, that Augustus admitted Caius
Ceesar εἰς τὴν ἐς τὸ συνέδριον συμφοίτησιν as early as U.C.
748: and it may appear to be implied in Josephus that
the jirst occasion, on which he actually exercised this
privilege, was the very occasion when Augustus held a
council upon the will of Herod. But the language of
Josephus in each instance" is at least ambiguous, if
not positively liable to misconstruction. According to
both passages, and more especially to that in the Anti-
quities, the true account of his meaning appears to me
to be, not that this was the first time when Caius had
been admitted to such deliberations as these; but that
he presided in the present instance along with Au-
gustus ; he took the chief seat next to him: which
rather implies that he had been admitted to such con-
sultations already. To suppose, indeed, that Caius
was present at the public councils, upon this occasion,
for the first time, and, consequently, that the question
of the will of Herod was actually under discussion be-
fore Augustus, U.C. 748. or even, U.C. 749. would
be utterly irreconcilable to any date of his death,
ὁ Dissertatio ii. cap. 3. Cf. Dio,lv.9. flv.g. & Loco cit. Cf. Zonaras x. 35.
539.A. h Locis citatis.
Aas
358 Appendix. Dissertation Fifth.
however early, that could be proposed with the least
degree of probability in its favour.
The Ancyran monument, as we have seen, dates the
admission both of Caius and Lucius Cesar to the
public consultations, Ex eo die quo deducti sunt in fo-
rum: that is, from the time when they laid aside the
toga puerilis or pretexta, and put on the toga pura,
labera, or virilis. The age at which young men com-
monly underwent this ceremony was originally sixteen
or seventeen‘. ‘Towards the end of the commonwealth,
and thenceforward, however, the rule became different,
and the toga virilis was commonly assumed in the four-
teenth or fifteenth year*. More particularly was this the
rule observed in the case of persons of quality. An-
tyllus, Antony’s and Fulvia’s eldest son, was born U.C.
710, and assumed the toga virilis U.C. 7241. Nero,
Germanicus’ eldest son, was born U.C. 760, and as-
sumed the toga virilis U.C.773™. Virilis toga Ne-
roni maturata, says Tacitus": that is, he was allowed
to assume it earlier than usual; viz. in his fourteenth
year, tneunte, U.C. 804. ineunte*. The history of
* According to Dio, lxi. 3. and
Suetonius, Vita, 6. Nero was born
U. Ὁ. 790. in the month of De-
cember. ‘Tacitus also, Ann. xiii.
6. speaks of him as being Vix
septemdecim annos_ egressus,
U.C. 807. exeunte: and xii. 58.
he is said to have been sixteen,
U.C. 806. ineunte; which may
be understood of fifteen com-
plete—-or sixteen incomplete.
Yet Tacitus is not always con-
sistent in speaking of the age of
Nero. Ann. xii. 25. U.C. 803.
ineunte—he is said to have been
only two years older than Bri-
tannicus, who was born, according
to Dio, lx. 12.10. and Suetonius,
Claudius, 27. in the spring, or
on Feb. 12, U.C. 795. Tacitus,
indeed, from what he men-
tions Ann. xiii. 15. U.C. 808.
may have thought that Britan-
nicus was born a year earlier;
i Vide Macrobius, i.6: Aulus Gellius, x. 28: Plutarch, C. Gracchus, 5: Ser-
vius, ad Hneidem, vii. 162: Seneca, De Beneficiis, iii. xxxiii. 1: Livy, xxi. 46:
Valerius Max. v. iv. 2:
Servius, ad A®neidem, x. 800: Valerius Max. iii. i. 1:
Echkel, de Doctrina Numm. Vett. v. 71: Servius, ad Aineidem, ix. 590: Livy,
xxii. 57: xlv. 40: Plutarch, Cato Minor, 3. 73: Valerius Max. iii. i. 2.
k Ci-
cero, Epp. ad Atticum, i. 2 : ix. 19: Cf. Donatus’ Life of Virgil: Nicolaus Damasce-
nus, Vita Aug. Ces. pag. go. cap. 4: Seneca, Ad Marciam, xxiv. 1; Statius, Sil-
varum V. ii. 12. 64. seqq.
Suetonius, Caius, 7. 8.
1 Plutarch, Antonius, ro. 71.
n Annales, xii. 41.
m Tacitus, Ann. iii. 29 :
Admission of Caius Cesar to the Councils of Augustus. 359
the later emperors, as of Marcus Antoninus the philo-
sopher, of Commodus, Caracalla, &c. would still shew,
if it were necessary, the observance of the rule in ques-
tion.
The time of the year when the ceremony of discard-
ing the toga pretexta, and of the deductio in forum,
was undergone, generally speaking, was the spring ;
viz. at the feast of Bacchus, or the Liberalia, xvi. Kal.
Apriles, March 17.
Restat, ut inveniam, quare toga libera detur
Lucifero pueris, candide Bacche, tuo.
Ovid, Fasti, ii. 771.
Ergo ut tironem celebrare frequentia possit,
Visa dies dandz non aliena toge®. Ibid. 787.
And this may perhaps be considered the reason why
the ceremony in question, according to the old usage,
took place sometimes in the sixteenth, and sometimes
in the seventeenth year; according to the new, some-
times in the fourteenth, sometimes in the fifteenth : viz.
as the birthday of the individual happened to fall out
nearer to or further from the Liberalia in question.
We may take it for granted that the case of Caius
and Lucius Czesar would not be an exception to the
general rule; in other words, that each of them would
assume the manly gown in his fourteenth or his fif-
teenth year. And, indeed, Suetonius informs us °, that
Augustus’ only reason for accepting his twelfth and
his thirteenth consulships respectively, was that he
might reflect so much the more lustre on the cere-
mony of the tirocinium, or deductio in forum of his
two sons—that of Caius in the first instance, U.C. 749:
viz. in the spring of U.C. 794. than the truth at least—U.C.
But even this will suppose Nero 791. exeunie, not U.C. 790.
to have been born a year later
n Cf. Cicero, Epp. ad Atticum, vi. 1. o Augustus, 26.
Aa4
360 Appendix. Dissertation Fifth.
and that of Lucius in the second, U.C.752*. If the
one was born, after the Liberalia, U.C. 784. and the
other? after the Liberalia, U. C. 737. this would be, in
each instance, while the fifteenth year of their age was
still current.
The anniversary of the Liberalia had not perhaps
been three months passed, when Archelaus arrived at
Rome; and Lucius Cesar had probably by the same ,
time entered on his fifteenth year. Hence, as the con-
sultation in question upon the will of Herod, was not
strictly a public one, it is not unlikely that Augustus
might admit Lucius Cesar to it; in which case, it
would also not be unlikely that this admission of him
was for the first time. If any one, therefore, is dis-
posed to put such a construction on the words of Jose-
phus, that whichever of the two, whether Lucius or
Caius, was present on this occasion, he was present
for the first time; it would be an obvious conjecture
that by a lapse of memory, not at all uncommon in
him, he has confounded Caius with Lucius.
But I am persuaded that the other construction is
his true meaning in each instance; and the ancient
author of the Latin version understood both passages
in the same sense: so that there is no just ground for
questioning the accuracy of Josephus, either in the
Antiquities or in the War, with respect to this state-
ment at least. Lucius Czsar,-we perceive, is not men-
tioned by him, in reference to the present occasion, at
all; and there is no reason to suppose that he would
be. He did not become privileged to attend his fa-
ther’s councils, or those of the senate, until the en-
* Zonaras, Χ. 35.539.A.agrees of Lucius take place the year
with Suetonius in the yearofthe after. But this is probably a
deductio of Caius, butmakesthat mistake.
P Dio, liv. 18.
Admission of Caius Cesar to the Councils of Augustus. 361
suing year, U.C.'752: and hence, as we may observe
by the way, is derived a strong objection to the opin-
ion which places the death of Herod, U.C. 752; viz.
that though by this year Lucius Cesar would have
been as much entitled to sit in judgment on his. will,
as his brother Caius, the latter only is actually spoken
of as exercising that privilege. There is no doubt that
as Lucius was entirely upon a par with his brother,
both in the affections of Augustus, and in the rights
and distinctions belonging to their community of rank,
and their personal relation to the emperor; he would
have been admitted to the exercise of this privilege
as well as his brother, had his age entitled him to
be so.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION VI.
On the date of the Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra.
Vide Dissertation v. vol. 1. page 281. last line.
A FACT, in the history of Archelaus, is mentioned
by Josephus*, to which sufficient attention has not
been paid, in determining the year of his banishment
—and consequently, of his father’s death. And yet
the fact is one which from its very nature may be im-
plicitly relied upon as true; and it is as well adapted
as any that could be advanced, for the disproof of the
assertion of Dio in particular, that Archelaus was de-
posed and banished, U. C. 759.
The fact in question is this. After the death of
Alexander, Archelaus’ brother, his widow Glaphyra
was married to Juba king of Lybia, or Mauritania ;
and after the death of Juba, she was again married to
Archelaus: with whom, however, she had not been
living long, when she had a remarkable dream, which
was followed in two days’ time by her death.
There can be no doubt that the Juba here -men-
tioned was the second king of Mauritania of that
name; ἃ contemporary of Augustus Cesar’s, and bet-
ter known to posterity for the number and variety of
his accomplishments as a writer, than even for his
noble birth and princely fortune. ‘To modern times,
however, nothing more of his has descended, than the
mere titles of some of his many works, and a few
fragments in the shape of quotations from others,
a Ant. Jud. xvii. xiii. 4. De Bello, ii. vii. 4.
Se eee. eet
Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra. 863
which are too meagre and scanty to reward a collec-
tor, who should be at the trouble of bringing them to-
gether. Nor am I aware that among these references
to his works, there are any on record, which would
supply the necessary data for determining the year of
his death. Philostratus quotes him °, as relating that
he had caught an elephant, four hundred years after
some battle—the time of which, however, is not spe-
_ cified : and Basil of Cappadocia seems to refer to the
same statement, where he observes’, νῦν δὲ ἤδη τινὲς
ἱστοροῦσι καὶ τριακόσια ἔτη καὶ πλείω τούτων βιοῦν τὸν
ἐλέφαντα *.
Repeated allusions occur in the Natural History of
Pliny to a work of Juba’s, upon Arabia, which he de-
dicated to Caius Cesar; having composed it in conse-
quence of Caius’ expedition into Arabia‘. Caius Czesar
was sent into the East, U.C.753; and as his death
happened in the month of February, U.C. 757, it is.
manifest that the time of the composition of this work
* In the Monumenta Histo-
rica, ad Augusti regnum perti-
nentia, (apud Orellium, Inscri-
ptionum Latinarum amplissima
Collectio) there is a fragment
which is addressed to Juba by
the duumviri, or municipal con-
suls, of some Colonia Romana,
(which the learned editor con-
siders to have been Carthage,)
as the Patronus Colonie. In
Festus Avienus’ Ora Maritima,
(Geographi Minores, iv. p. 18. 1.
Tartessus prius | Cognominata
est. multa ac opulens civitas |
AXvo vetusto, nunc egena, nunc
brevis, | Nunc destituta, nunc
ruinarum agger est.|......
etetieiet, so whee Lies | At vis
in illis tanta, vel tantum decus,
| Atate prisca sub fide rerum
fuit, | Rex ut superbus, omni-
umque prepotens, | Quos gens
habebat forte tum Maurusia, |
Octaviano principi acceptissi-
mus, | Et litterarum semper in
269. sqq.) we have the following
allusion to the fact of Juba’s hav-
ing been himself also sometime
one of the duumviri of Tartes-
sus in Spain. ...... Ipsa
studio Juba, | Interfluoque se-
paratus equore, | Illustriorem
semet urbis istius | Duumviratu
crederet
Ὁ Vita Apollonii Tyan. ii. 6. 70. B—D. Cf. Elian, De Natura Animalium, ix.
58. ¢ Operum i. 120. B. In Hexaémeron Homilia ix. Vide also, Ambrose,
Operum i. 125. E. Hexaémeron vi. v. δ. 34. Cf. however, lian, De Natura Ani-
malium, xvii. 7.
4 HN. ii. 67. vi. 31. 32. xii. 31. xxxii. 4.
364 Appendix. Dissertation Sixth.
could not be earlier than U.C. 754. nor later than
U.C. 756. It follows, therefore, that Juba was not
yet dead, between U.C. 754. and U.C. 756.
Accordingly it is evident from Dio Cassius *, that
Juba was actually alive when the Geetuli rebelled ; the
time of which rebellion he places U. C. 758. or 759 ¢.
For they were reduced the same year in which Tibe-
rius made his second expedition into Germany’; viz.
the year U.C. 759. The winter immediately subse-
quent to the reduction, which is just afterwards alluded
to as spent in Pannonia, was the winter of U. C. 760:
the next year being U.C. 7618, In these particulars,
as to the time of the commencement of the Pannonian
war, Velleius Paterculus agrees with Dio; as I have
had occasion to prove more at large elsewhere '.
The proconsul of Africa at the time of this reduction
was Cossus Cornelius Lentulus. Now he had _ been
consul U.C.'753. Hence, by a standing rule of Au-
gustus’ government, he could not be proconsul until
five years afterwards, at the earliest: that is, until
U.C. 758. And this also is an argument that the re-
bellion of the Getuli, and consequently the death of
Juba, who was alive at the time, could not be earlier
than U. C. 758.
The extant coins of the kings of Mauritania from
Juba the elder, to Ptolemy, the son and successor of
Juba the younger, and which are principally those of
Juba the younger himself; if the numeral notes which
they contain are rightly understood of the years of his
reign, make him to have reigned forty-eight years at
least*. Pliny, H. N. v.1: Juba, Ptolemei pater, qui
primus utrique Mauritaniz imperavit: Tacitus, Ann.
iv.5: MaurosJuba rex acceperat donum populi Romani.
€ lv. 28. f Ibid. 25. & Ibid. 28, 29, 30. h Cf. lv. 30. 33. i Disser-
tation viii. vol. i. 337. k Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum Vett. iv. 155—161.
Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra. 365
Strabo! makes his kingdom the gift of Augustus Cesar.
He tells us also™ that Bogus or Bocchus, king of Mau-
ritania, having espoused the part of Antony, perished
at Methone in the Messenian territory*, when Agrippa
took that place after the battle of Actium. His terri-
tories thus became forfeited to Augustus, and might
be given by him to Juba. Dio, liii. 26. 25, places this
enlargement of his dominions, in what way soever it
was made, U. C. 729: and he tells us, before, li. 15.
21, that. Juba accompanied Augustus in his expedition
against Egypt, U. C. 724, and after the death of An-
tony and Cleopatra was married by him to Cleopatra
their daughter, as well as reinstated in possession of
part of his father’s dominions, which had become for-
feited to the Roman government by Juba the elder’s
opposition to Julius Ceesar 7.
Upon the authority of this testimony, Eckhel de-
duces the years of his reign from U. C. 724: on which
supposition, if he reigned at least forty-eight years, he
could not be dead before U.C. 771 or 772. But this
learned and accurate writer seems to have overlooked
in the present instance the passage from Josephus ;
which places it beyond a doubt that Juba was not
alive after U.C. 760, at the latest. And Josephus is
strongly confirmed by the following fact; viz. that
* Cf. Porphyry, Περὶ ἀποχῆς
ζώων, 1. 25. p. 37.
+ To this marriage of Juba
and Cleopatra, we may refer an
extant epigram of Crinagoras,
(a contemporary of the reign of
Augustus, as his epigrams shew, )
which would otherwise be in-
volved in obscurity: Antholo-
gia, li. 132. Xix.
"Ayxouvpor μεγάλαι κόσμου χθόνες,
ἃς διὰ Νεῖλος | πιμπλάμενος pedd-
1 xvii. 3. δ. 7. 654.
νων τέμνει an Αἰθιόπων, | ἀμφό-
τεραι βασιλῆας ἐκοινώσασθε γάμοι-
σιν, | ἕν γένος Αἰγύπτου καὶ Λιβύης
θέμεναι. | ἐκ πατέρων εἴη παισὶν
πάλι τοῖσιν ἀνάκτων | ἔμπεδον 7-
πείροις σκῆπτρον ἐπ᾽ ἀμφοτέραις.
So likewise, a fragment of
félian’s, in. Suidas, voce “Aye-
ται. Dio li. 21. will imply that
this marriage was not earlier
than U.C. 725. or 726.
M viii, 4. δ. 3. 160. Cf. xvii. 3. δ. 7. 653.
366 Appendix. Dissertation Sixth.
among the coins of Ptolemy, the son of Juba, there is
one which represents him as already king, in the life-
time of Augustus ; and what is more as sole king. Now
this is altogether inexplicable, if his father did not die
until four or five years after the death of Augustus
himself. It is entirely a gratuitous supposition to as-
sume that he was associated with his father in his life-
time: and if he had been so, the coins which were
subsequently struck during the reign of Augustus
must have exhibited them both in conjunction.
The language of Strabo is express that Juba died,
before Ptolemy his son succeeded him in the kingdom.
* Juba,” says he, “ died not long ago; and Ptolemy his
‘¢ son has succeeded to his dominions, being his offspring
* by a daughter of Antony’s and Cleopatra’s ®.” Cf. also
the end of the book §. 25.707. But Strabo, it may be
objected, both here, and in one or two other passages
of the same chapter, speaks of him as νεωστὶ τετελευτη-
κότα. There is a reference in such words to Strabo’s
own time: and the time when Strabo was writing ad-
mits of being very exactly determined. For example,
lib. iv. cap. vi. §.9. 86: ᾧ. 8.84, 85. he mentions the re-
duction of the Rheeti, Vindelici, and Norici, which Dio
(liv. 22.) proves to have been, U. C. 738 or 739—as
thirty-three years before the time when he was writing.
Lib. vi. cap.iv. ᾧ. 2. 312: lib. vii. cap.i. ᾧ. 4. 327. he
alludes to Germanicus’ triumph over the Cherusci,
May 26, U.C.770: Tacitus, Ann. ii. 42 *.
Lib. xii. cap. i. ᾧ. 4. 10. he mentions the death of
Archelaus, king of Cappadocia; which also was U.C.
770. Cf. Tacitus, Ann. ii. 42. Dio, lvii. 17.
* Cf. also Strabo, lib.1.cap.2. 769: and Strabo, lib. iv. cap. iil.
page 37: lib. vii. cap.i. ὃ. 4. ὃ. 4. page 49. with Tacitus, Ann.
with Tacitus, Ann. ii. 22. U.C. 1. 69. U. C. 768.
n Lib. xvii. 3. §. 7. 654.
Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra. 367
Lib. xii. cap. iii. ᾧ. 29.124. he alludes to the death
of Cotys, king of Thrace, and to the appointment of
Zeno, son of Polemo, to be king of Armenia—both of
which were U.C.771—(Cf. Tacitus, Ann. ii. 56. 66 :)
or the former early in U.C. 772.
Lib. xii. cap. viii. ᾧ.18. 242: lib. xiii. cap. ili. ᾧ. ὅ. 448.
cap. iv. ᾧ. 8. 476. the earthquake in Asia is alluded to
as a recent event: and that happened U.C.770. Vide
Tacitus, Ann. ii. 47. Dio, lvii. 17.
Lib. xvii. cap. iii. ᾧ. 25.'708. Achaia is spoken of as
still a proconsular province, which it was not, strictly
speaking, after U.C. 768: Tacitus, Ann. i. 76.
But his age is most critically determined by the last
sentence of book the sixth: which shews that Germa-
nicus was still alive when he was writing. Now Ger-
manicus was not alive after October ninth, U.C. 772:
and his death was known at Rome before the middle
of December in the same year.
It is manifest, then, that Strabo was writing either
U.C.771, or early in U.C.'772. Hence, if his expres-
sion, ‘lately dead,” concerning Juba, is to be strictly
understood, it would imply that he had died U. C. 770,
or early in 771: the last of which dates, and much
more the first, would scarcely be reconcilable to the
testimony of a coin of his, which bore date in the
forty-eighth year of his reign, if deduced from U.C.
724; after the reduction of Egypt. For this coin
would not begin to bear date, before the autumnal
quarter of U.C. 771. itself. And though Strabo al-
ludes to Juba, lib. vi. cap. iv. ᾧ. 2. 312. even as govern-
ing Mauritania still; this is a statement which at that
time could not be true, except as understood generally,
and of the fact that his family was continuing to reign
over it after him, though he himself was dead.
The truth is, nothing is more common in works
368 Appendix. Dissertation Sixth.
which are not professedly historical, nor tied down
to the observance of the utmost strictness in re-
ference to dates, than to find things alluded to in gene-
ral terms, as of recent occurrence, which happened
several years before*. We might produce numerous in-
stances of this way of speaking, if it were necessary.
Strabo in particular, from the miscellaneous and desul-
tory character of his Geographica, is very apt to be
loose and indefinite in his allusions to contemporary
history ; and to speak of things as connected in point
of time, which were really many years asunder f+.
For my own part, I see no reason why the years of
the reign of Juba should not be supposed to bear date
from the time of the death of his father, U.C. 708.
He was carried, it is true, by Julius Cesar to Rome,
and exhibited while still a young child, or a boy,
among the other trophies of the successes in Africa, at
the triumph in the same year'. But no further degra-
dation appears to have attended him—and he must
subsequently have been treated with uniform care and
tenderness, to have received that education which made
* As for example, Lactantius,
Divine Institutiones, lib. i. cap.
21. p. 91. Apud Cypri Sala-
minem, humanam hostiam Jovi
Theucrus immolavit; idque sa-
crificium posteris tradidit : quod
est NUPER Hadriano imperante
sublatum.. Yet Lactantius was
not writing earlier than A.D.
303. and Hadrian died A. D.
138.
+ There is an instance of
this, lib. ii. cap. v. page 313.
and lib. xvi. cap. iv. ὃ. 22. 443.
where he alludes to the Arabian
expedition of Atlius Gallus as
a recent event ; yet it was forty
years before U. C. 770. There is
another, lib. i. cap. i. p. 27. in
which he alludes either to Crassus’
or to Antony’s expedition into
Parthia, as τὴν viv orpareiav—the
latter of which was fifty years at
least, before the time when he
was writing. In like manner,
x. 2. δ. 14. 82. he speaks of
Caius Antonius, Cicero’s col-
league in the consulate, U.C.691.
as his own contemporary ; eighty
years after the date of that con-
sulship. So also vill. 6. ὃ 23.
278. he alludes to the burning
of the temple of Ceres, as a
recent event, which Dio, 1. το.
shews to have happened U. C.
723. Cf. Zonaras, x. 28. 524. B.
1 Dio, xliii. 19 : Appian, B. Civ. ii, 101: Plutarch, Julius Ces. 55.
Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra. 369
him so learned and accomplished a writer. Deduce
the years of his reign, from U.C. 708: and his forty-
eighth would expire, U.C. 756. at which time it is
quite certain that he was still alive: though he might
be dead in two or three years afterwards.
Among the coins of Ptolemy his son and successor,
there is one which Eckhel, vol. iv. p. 160, refers to the
occasion specified by Tacitus", U.C. 777. at the close
of the war with Tacfarinas; when in return for his ser-
vices in that war, the Roman senate awarded him the
peculiar distinctions, formerly accorded to social or al-
lied kings, who had deserved well of the state, in the
shape of such and such presents. The numeral note
on this coin is obscure. Eckhel says it denotes v1.
and this, he argues, is a strong confirmation of the
fact that Ptolemy began to reign, U.C. 772. Deduced
from U.C.772, the sixth of his reign might thus bear
date U.C. 777. at the close of the war with Tacfa-
rinas.
But (pace tanti viri dixerim) I can perceive nothing
in the description of the coin, which appears to iden-
tify it with the occasion specified by Tacitus. Tacitus
enumerates no insignia but the sczpio eburnus, and the
toga picta; the coin shews two curule chairs, sur-
mounted by a crown, and on their right a spear, lying
crossways. And as to the numeral character, it seems
to resemble an x enclosed in a Vv: and it may stand for
XV. XVI. or XVII. as likely as for VI.
A coin is described by Eckhel, iv. 156. among those
attributed to Juba, which is to this effect: Rex Juba, re-
gis Jube f. (caput diadematum) R. Ptola. xvi. Aquila.
As the letter R. is agreed upon to denote Regis or
Regni, what can Ptolemzi xvit. here denote but the
XVII of his reign? And if this be the case, as a fur-
ther conjecture, may not the two kings here have some
m Annales, iv. 23. 26. 27.
VOL. III. Bb
370 Appendix. Dissertation Sixth.
~~
kind of reference to the two curule seats in the former
instance ?
We are informed by Strabo", that Juba founded a
Cesarea in Mauritania, in honour of Augustus his
patron, the name of which was formerly Iol: we are told
also that he founded games, called Czsarea, in honour
of him likewise; which are commemorated upon his
coins. It is exceedingly probable that these games
were guinquennial ; that is, celebrated at the end of
every four years complete: and from one of his coins
it appears that the anniversary of their celebration, in
a certain instance, coincided with the thirty-second year
of his reign—Eckhel, p. 156: that is, referred to U.C.
708, it coincided with U.C. 740. On this principle, they
would again be in course, thirty-six years afterwards,
U C. 776: which, if Juba died, and Ptolemy began to
reign, U.C. 759. might be zz the XVII. year of the latter.
With regard to the personal history of this Ptolemy,
he was the offspring of the marriage before alluded to,
between Juba and Cleopatra, the daughter of Antony
and Cleopatra®. According to Suetonius ?, his mother’s
name was Selene—but this is no objection: as Cleo-
patra4 herself assumed the name of Selene. In fact Dio
himself calls her by each name at once’. She could not,
at the time of her marriage, U.C.'724 or 725, be more
than twelve or thirteen years old: for she was one of the
two oldest of the children of Antony and Cleopatra §,
who first met in Cilicia, U.C. 712. or 713°. We have
seen from the coins of Ptolemy her son, that he began
Ἢ xvii. 3. δ. 12. 665. Cf. Eutropius, vii. το. ο Plutarch, Antonius,
87. Strabo, xvii. 3. §. 7.654. Suidas, in the short memoir which he gives of Juba,
voce ᾿Ιόβας, calls this Cleopatra or Selene, the daughter of Caius Cesar : by whom
we must suppose him to mean Julius Cesar. But this is a mistake. She was
one of twins, Alexander and Cleopatra, the two oldest of the children of Antony
and Cleopatra. Julins Cesar certainly had a child by Cleopatra. But he was a
son, and called Cesario. Selene was no uncommon adjunct to the name of Cleo-
patra, with the Egyptian princesses of the Syro-Macedonian line. See Strabo, xvi.
2. §. 3. 302, P Caius, 26. ᾳ Dio, 1. 5. rli,2r. 5.10, xlix. 32.
t Atheneus, iv. 29: Appian, B. C.v. 1. 4. 8: Dio, xlviii. 2.
Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra. 371
to reign in the lifetime of Augustus; and he continued
in the undisturbed possession of his dominions all
through the reign of Tiberius. But he was not so for-
tunate in the reign of Caius. Seneca, De Tranquil-
litate: Ptolemzeum Africe regem, Armeniz Mithri-
datem, inter Caianas custodias vidimus’. According
to Suetonius¥, he was put to death by Caius, U.C.
792: according to Dio and Zonaras *, in the same year
with Caius’ German expedition, and marriage to Cz-
sonia—U.C. 793; which, I think, is nearer to the
truth. For his death excited a rebellion in Mauritania
—to which Pliny alludes Υ as an event coincident with
the beginning of the reign of Claudius: Romana arma
primum Claudio principe in Mauritania bellavere,
Ptolemzum regem a C. Cesare interemptum ulciscente
liberto Ardemone *.
The last year of the reign of Ptolemy being thus
U.C. 793. and his first U. C. 759. he must have reigned
34 years: which is no improbable supposition. We
do not know in what year he was born; but had he
been born in the earliest possible, U.C. 725, his age
would be only sixty-eight at his death.
I think that these considerations serve to place it
almost beyond a doubt, that the precise year of Juba’s
death is U.C. 759: and rather late in that year than
early. Now Glaphyra, even after his death, had been
living some time with her father Archelaus in Cappa-
docia, before Archelaus the son of Herod saw her
there, and fell in love with her. We need not argue
further that, according to Roman law and Roman
emperor, consequently, U. C.
the other in the first or
* It appears, indeed, from the
authorities cited, that there were
two rebellions of the Mauritani,
occasioned by the death of Pto-
lemy, one under Caius, and sup-
pressed before Claudius became
V xi. 10. w Caius, 26. 35.
yH.N. v. 1. Cf. Dio, lx. 8. 9.
793 3
second of his reign, and ulti-
mately suppressed by Galba,
U.C. 796 or 797.
x Dio, lix. 25: Zonaras, xi. 6. 557. B.
Bb2
372 Appendia. Dissertation Sixth.
usage, a law and an usage which the wife of Juba
might be expected to obey, his widow would be re-
quired to mourn for her husband ten months, before
she could form a new match’. Let their eagerness to
be united to each other have been ever so great, and
their disregard of decency ever so flagrant, yet under
the circumstances of the case, they could not have had
an opportunity of being married, before the beginning of
U.C. 760. Glaphyra had not been long come to Judza
before her death—nor, as the context implies, had she
been dead long, before Archelaus himself was deposed.
It remains only to shew that Glaphyra might still be
young enough to excite the cupidity of Archelaus,
U.C. 759. or 760, though she had been twice married
previously.
Glaphyra was the daughter of Archelaus and Gla-
phyra, being so named after her grandmother, who is
described before her marriage as an éraipa®*. It appears
to be implied that she was not born until her father
became king of Cappadocia. Now he was sometime
appointed by Antony; and was deposed by Tiberius,
U.C. 770, in the fiftieth year of his reign. Hence
he was appointed U.C.720 or 721+. His wife Gla-
phyra, we may presume, was dead, when he was mar-
ried to Pythodoris, the widow of Polemo, king of
Pontus—who, however, was still alive U. C. 7401.“
* Yet in Josephus, De Bello,
i, xxiv. 2. she is said to have
been lineally descended from
Darius Hystaspis.
+ Cf. Strabo, lib. xii. cap. 2.
§. 12.46. Dio, however, places
his appointment U.C. 718. See
xlix. 32, 33. It appears from
Strabo, (xii. 2. ὃ. 12. 45.) that
he was not of the hereditary
family of the kings of Cappa-
docia, which was properly de-
scended from Ariobarzanes, elect-
ed by permission of the Roman
senate, after the conquest of
Asia, in the war with Antiochus
Magnus. But this family had
failed μετὰ τριγονίαν.
11 the Marmor, quoted by
Eckhel, ii. 370, is to be believed,
z Ovid, Fasti, iii.133, 134. Seneca, Consolatio ad Helviam, xvi.1. ἃ Dio, xlix. 32.
Ὁ Tacitus, Annales, ii. 42 : Dio, lvii. 17. © Dio, liv. 24. Josephus, Ant. xvi. ii. 2.
Marriage of Archelaus and Glaphyra. 373
U. C. 738, as I had occasion to shew elsewhere 4, Gla-
phyra his daughter was married to Alexander, one of
the sons of Herod and Mariamne: at which time, it is
exceedingly probable she was not more than fifteen or
sixteen years of age. U.C. 749. Alexander, and his
brother Aristobulus, were both put to death: and then
Glaphyra was probably twenty-six or twenty-seven.
_How soon after that she might be married to Juba, I
cannot undertake to say. Josephus® tells us that
Herod sent her back to her father, immediately after
the death of her husband. But even in U.C. 759. in
which year he died, she would be only thirty-six or
thirty-seven: and she might possibly be still younger.
Herodias was probably not a younger woman, when
she too retained sufficient of her personal attractions,
to engage the affections of the tetrarch of Galilee,
and to induce him to persuade her to divorce herself
from her existing husband, and to marry him. Vide
Dissertation x. infra.
he was not dead even in U.C.
752. His death, and the cir-
cumstances under which it hap-
pened, are mentioned by Strabo,
lib. xi. cap. 2. §. 11. 386. Cf.
ibid. §. 3. 373. His death is
again mentioned, and the fact of
Pythodoris, his wife’s, reigning
in his stead, lib. xi. 2. δ. 18. 404.
Cf. also lib. xii. cap. 3. §. 29.
124. which again mentions both
his death, and the marriage of
Pythodoris with Archelaus, and
her surviving him, and being a
widow when Strabo was writing.
Polemo was the son of Zeno,
the ῥήτωρ of Laodicea in Phry-
gia—and was made king first by
Antony, afterwards by Augustus :
see Strabo, lib. xii. 7. §. 16. 236.
ἃ Dissertation xiv. vol. i. 490, 401.
as Pythodoris was the daughter
of Pythodorus of Tralles. See
xiv. 1, §. 42. 577. This Polemo
must have been altogether a
different person from him, on
whose demise the Pontus was
reduced to a province under the
name of Pontus Polemoniacus.
Vide Aurelius Victor, in Nerone,
who dates it within the first five
years of Nero’s reign, that is,
between U. C. 807 and 812.
Cf. Suetonius, Nero, 18: Taci-
tus, Historie, iii. 47. Jerome,
however, in Chronico, and Eck-
hel, ii. 373, both shew that the
year of this reduction was U. C.
815 or 816. The Polemo in
question was the son of the pre-
ceding.
e Ant. xvii. 1. 1. De Bello, i. xxviii. 1.
Bb3
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION VII.
On the Date of the Proconsular Authority of Tiberius.
Vide Dissertation vii. vol. 1. page 344. last line.
‘THE conclusions, which I have endeavoured to esta-
blish respecting the date of Tiberius’ triumph, and of
his association in the empire with Augustus, may be
materially illustrated and confirmed by the testimony
of Ovid’s Tristia, and Epistole de Ponto: which were
all written between the time of his banishment, and
that of his death, in the third or fourth year of the
reign of Tiberius.
The time of his banishment, as well as the order
and regularity of the several compositions, above re-
ferred to, may be ascertained from the following pas-
sages :
Ut patria careo; bis frugibus area trita est :
Dissiluit nudo pressa bis uva pede.
Tristium lib. iv. vi. 19. Cf. lib. iii. x. 15, 16. 35—4o0.
Bis me sol adiit gelide post frigora brume,
Bisque suum tacto Pisce peregit iter. Ibid. lib. iv. vii. τ.
Hune quoque de Getico, nostri studiose, libellum,
Littore, preemissis guattuor adde meis.
Ibid. lib. v. 1. 1. Cf. lib. i. x: lib. ii. i: lib. iii. i. viii.
27——34: xiv: lib. iv.i: De Ponto, lib. ii. v.
Ut sumus in Ponto ter frigore constitit Ister :
Facta est Euxini dura ter unda maris. Tbid. lib. v. x. τ.
Perque dies multos lateris cruciatibus uror,
Sed quod non modico frigore lesit hyems. Ibid. lib. v. xiii. 5.
Hic me pugnantem cum frigore, cumque sagittis,
Cumque meo fato, quarta fatigat hyems.
Epistole de Ponto, lib. i. ii. 27.
Ut careo vobis, Stygias detrusus in oras,
Quattuor autumnos Pleias orta facit. Ibid. lib. i. viii. 28.
Date of the Proconsulér Authority of Tiberius. 81
In Scythia nobis quinquennis Olympias acta est :
Jam tempus lustri transit in alterius.
Ibid. lib. iv. vi. 5.
Hic mihi Cimmerio bis tertia ducitur estas
Littore, pellitos inter agenda Getas.
Ibid. lib. iv. x. 1.
Ile quidem dixit, sed me jam, Care, nivali
Sexta relegatum bruma sub axe videt.
Ibid. lib. iv. xiii. 39 *.
It thus appears that Ovid’s rule is to date the years
of his exile in succession from the winter, rather than
from any other quarter of the year: the reason of
which is, that he was ordered into banishment, and
arrived at his destination in that season in particular.
Tristium lib. i. x. 3. says, in the month of December :
with which, however, we must compare Tristium lib. i.
* These citations sufficiently
prove that the 7'ristza, and the
Epistole de Ponto, as we have
them, are arranged in regular or-
der ; though lib. iii. ix. of the lat-
ter, 51-54. it is said, Nec liber ut
fieret, sed uti sua cuique daretur
| Littera, propositum curaque
nostra fuit. | Post modo collec-
tas, utcunque sine ordine, junxi:
| Hoc opus electum ne mihi
forte putes. Epp. de Ponto, lib.
iv. ii. and lib. 1. viii. may ap-
pear an exception to this gene-
ral regularity, if both are ad.
dressed to the same person, Se-
verus. I should think, however,
that the latter Severus is dis-
tinct from the former; and by
comparing lib. i. viii. with lib.
iy. vil. it will appear that the
former is sufliciently regularly
placed where we have it. If
there is any difficulty with re-
spect to De Ponto, lib. iv. ix.
an Epistle written either in or
just before, the year when Gree-
cinus was consul, as compared
with iv. x.1—it admits of being
explained. The Epistle shews
(59. 60.) that Greecinus’ term of
office was to expire in the De-
cember of one year, and his bro-
ther’s (Flaccus’, 69. 75) was to
succeed, on the first of January
in the next. It shews also (69.
70.) that they owed their consu-
lates respectively to the desi-
gnatio of Augustus. The letter
might have been written U. C.
768—upon Ovid’s hearing of
this fact: and yet not reach
Rome until the end of that year,
or the beginning of the next.
The writer did not exactly know
whether the one Greecinus would
be consul er Kal. Jan. as well
as the other (see 1—8) or not.
Hence it is no objection that
the Fasti (Almeloveeniani) shew
Pomponius Grecinus consul ew
Kal. Jul. U. C. 769 ; and Flac-
cus Grecinus, ex Kal. Jan. U.C.
770.
+ The truth is, indeed, that
he might be ordered into banish..
Bb 4
376 Appendix. Dissertation Seventh.
To the above notices we may add Tristium lib. iii. xiii.
written on his birthday, most probably in the second
year of his banishment, U. C. 763. and lib. v. iii. 1.
written at the period of the Liberalia, either the same
year, or more probably the next.
Now when De Ponto, lib. iv. xili. was written, which
lines 39. 40. place in the seth winter of Ovid’s exile,
line 25. shews that Augustus was dead. Also, when
De Ponto, lib. iv. vi. was written, which lines 5, 6. place
in the second lustrum of his exile, both Augustus and
Maximus (who died a little before him) were dead:
and Ovid had written a poem ‘on the death or deifica-
tion of the former. See lines 9—18. Compare like-
wise lib. iv. viii. 63, 64: ix.127—134. ;
Again, De Ponto iv. iv. (line 17.) was written the
year before the consulate of the two Sewxti, that is,
U.C. 766: and lib. iv. v. in the year of their con-
sulate, U. C. 767. zmeunte. And as lib. iv. v. imme-
diately precedes lib. iv. vi. it follows that by the quen-
quennis olympias, spoken of lib. iv. vi. 5. it is meant
that five years of exile were now past; and by the
lustrum alterum in the next line, that the second five
years were then current: the first year of which was
not earlier than the year of the consulate of the two
Sexti, and of the death of Augustus, U. C. 767. On
this principle, the first year of Ovid’s exile, dated
from the winter quarter, is U. C. 761. exeunte, or ra-
ther U. C. 762. ineuntet.
It agrees with this conclusion that, Tristium lib. iv. x.
ment in December, or before,
but would not reach his destina-
tion until some months later.
* It is true that lib. iv. xiii.
which lines 27, 28. will shew,
could not have been written
until some time after the acces-
sion of Tiberius—is said, as we
have seen, lines 39, 40, to have
been written in the sixth winter
of Ovid’s exile. This sixth win-
ter would be strictly that of
U. ©. 767. if reckoned inclu-
Date of the Proconsular Authority of Tiberius. 377
5. 6. 13. (cf. Fasti, lib. iv. 81.) he tells us he was born
on the second day of the guinquatrus, March 20. (cf.
Fasti, lib. iii. 8309-814.) U. C. 711: and Tristium 1.¢
95: lib. iv. viii. 33: Ibis, 1.11. that he was banished
in or not long after his fiftieth year. He would enter
on his fifty-first year, March 20, U. C. 761.
Hence, De Ponto, lib. i. ii, (27) would be written in
the winter, U. C. 765: lib. i. viii. (28) in the autumn of
the same year: and the Epistles, between lib. i. viii.
and lib. iv. iv. being written in regular order, would
be written between the autumn, U.C.765, and the time
when Ovid heard of the designation of the Seat: to
the consulate, U. C. 766.
De Ponto, lib. ii. i. is one of these, and relates ex-
clusively to some triumph ; which verses 25—-28, prove
presumptively to have been in the winter; and verses
1. 45, 46. 4952, to have been that which Tiberius
celebrated January 16, U. C. 765, for his successes in
Pannonia, U. C. 762. Another allusion to this triumph
occurs in the next Epistle,
Adde triumphatos modo Peonas, adde quieti
Subdita montane brachia Dalmatie.
Lib. ii. ii. 77. &.
The celebration of this triumph in a composition,
which he calls after it, the Z2wmphus, Ovid projected
sively of the winter of U.C.
762. But Ovid reckons in this
instance exclusively of it—so as
to make the sixth winter that of
U.C. 768. And this will recon-
cile the mention of the sixth
summer in lib. iv. x. with that
of the sixth winter, lib. iv. xiii:
and both with the assumed date
of the letter to Grecinus, lib.
iv. ix.
There is an allusion, Tristium
lib. 11. i. 167. to the Nepotes of
Augustus: Utque tui faciunt sidus
juvenile nepotes, | Per tua, per-
que sui facta parentis eant:
which some commentators have
understood of Caius and Lucius
Cesar. But it refers to Ger-
manicus and Drusus; at this
time both standing in the rela-
tion of sons to Tiberius, and of
grandsons to Augustus. Caius
and Lucius were dead before
Ovid was banished.
378 Appendix. Dissertation Seventh.
~ as soon as he heard of it: lib. ii. i.63: and when he
wrote lib. ii. v. 27, &c. he had begun it, but laid it by
for a time.
Nuper ut hic magni pervenit fama Triumphi ;
Ausus sum tantz condere molis opus.
Obruit audentem rerum gravitasque nitorque,
Nec potui coepti pondera ferre mei.
Yet he completed it at last, and sent it to the city be-
fore he wrote Epp. lib. iii: and subsequently he writes,
Hec tibi non vanam portantia verba salutem
Naso Tomitana mittit ab urbe tuus.
Utque suo faveas mandat, Rufine, Triumpho,
In vestras venit si tamen ile manus.
De Ponto, lib. iii. iv. 1.
See lines 51—60 in particular.
The difference of this triumph from that of Germa-
nicus, a. d. vii. Kal. Jun. U.C. 770. Tacitus, Ann. ii.
41. appears from the following passages.
Quo pede nunc utar, dubia est sententia nobis.
Alter enim de te, Rhene, triumphus adest.
De Ponto, lib. iii. iv. 87.
Quid cessas currum, pompamque parare triumphis
Livia? jam nullas dant tibi bella moras.
Perfida damnatas Germania projicit hastas.
Jam pondus dices omen habere meum.
Crede, brevique fides aderit, geminabit honorem
Filius, et junctis, ut prius, ibit equis*. Ibid. gs.
Accordingly, when the Fasti were written, or rather
completed, in their present state, Ovid had lived to
hear of this triumph also.
Pax erat, et vestri, Germanice, caussa triumphi
Tradiderat famulas jam tibi Rhenus aquas. Fasti, 1. 285.
* There is anallusiontosome to the triumph of Tiberius, De
triumphus, in the preceding Epi- Pannoniis, already celebrated,
stle, (lib. iii. iii. ) 85—92. which, or, though I do not think it so
as it occurs in the account of a probable, to this anticipated one,
supposed vision, may be either over the Germans.
Date of the Proconsular Authority of Tiberius. 379
This was a possible event, even though the death of
Ovid be placed, with Jerome in Chronico, p. 157. in
the fourth of Tiberius, U. C.770—771.
To the war in Germany, U. C. 762—765. as waged
by Tiberius in conjunction with the Nepotes of Augu-
stus, Germanicus and Drusus, allusions occur, Tristium
lib. ii. i. 165—178. 229, 230: Tristium lib. iii. xii. 45—
48. which I should think was written in the spring of
U. C. 763. after Ovid had heard of the rebellion, begun
with the death of Varus: vide lines 1—4, &c.: and to
the subsequent triumph, U.C.'765. proleptically, Tri-
stium lib. iv. ii. throughout: the time of which last com-
position too, I should apprehend to be after he had heard
of the resumption of hostilities by Tiberius, U. C. 763.
Nor is this inconsistent with Tristium lib. iv. vi. 19: for
the second autumn, since Ovid’s arrival in the Pontus,
would be that of this year itself, U. C. 768.
It seems to me a probable conjecture, also, that De
Ponto, lib. ii. viii. which is addressed to Maximus
Cotta, in this same year, U.C. 765. to acknowledge
the arrival of three statues or busts, Augustus’, Tibe-
rius’, and Livia’s, respectively, was written after Tibe-
rius’ association in the empire had become known to
Ovid. The terms in which he speaks of Tiberius are
just as magnificent, as his language concerning Au-
gustus.
1. Redditus est nobis Cesar cum Cesare nuper,
Quos mihi misisti, Maxime Cotta, deos.
Utque tuum munus numerum quem debet haberet,
Est ibi Cesaribus Livia juncta suis.
13. Cesareos video vultus, velut ante videbam:
Vix hujus voti spes fuit ulla mihi.
23. Parce, vir immenso major virtutibus orbe,
Justaque vindicte supprime lora tue.
Parce, precor, secli decus indelebile nostri,
Terrarum dominum quem sua cura facit.
380 Appendix. Dissertation Seventh.
37. Et tua, si fas est, a Cesare proxime Ceasar,
Numina sint precibus non inimica meis.
Sic fera quamprimum pavido Germania vultu
Ante triumphantes serva feratur equos.
Sic pater in Pylios, Cumzos mater in annos,
Vivant ; et possis filius esse dei.
53. Cwesaris adventu τοῖα gladiator arena
Exit ; et auxilium non leve vultus habet.
Nos quoque vestra juvet quod, qua licet, ora videmus:
Intrata est Superis quod domus una tribus *.
At least De Ponto, lib. iv. v. 23-26. supplies an il-
lustration of the fact referred to from Dio, about
Augustus’ recommendation of Germanicus to the se-
nate; and of the senate to Tiberius. It is said of the
duties of the consul Sextus, U. C. 767,
—Aut feret Augusto solitam natoque salutem ;
Deque patrum noto consulet officio.
Tempus ab his vacuum Cesar Germanicus omne
Auferet. a magnis hunc colet 1116 deis.
De Ponto, lib. iv. ix. 75. alludes likewise to some com-
mand of Pomponius Flaccus’, as a recent event; and
being written U. Ο. 707 or 768. it so far proves that
this command might possibly be over, and Flaccus
again at Rome, as Suetonius and Pliny suppose, U. C.
765 or 766. The time of his przefecture in the vici-
nity of Ovid, is implicitly shewn to have been under the
reign of Augustus : so that it is not inconsistent with the
testimony of Ovid, that Tacitus, Ann. ii. 66, informs
us he was the person whom Tiberius made choice of,
U. C. 774, to succeed Latinius Pandus in the propre-
torship of Meesia, and to carry into effect the designs
of Tiberius upon the liberty of Rhescuporis. Pompo-
nius had either never been proprztor of that province
* These statues are again al- an Epistle written after the
luded to, lib. iv. ix.105—110: death of Augustus.
a Dissertation viii. vol. i. 341, 342. b Ibid. 343.
Date of the Proconsular Authority of Tiberius. 381
before, or never yet under Tiberius. Velleius, who
mentions his appointment, ii.129, calls him consularem
virum at the time; as he truly was, U. C. 772, having
been consul U.C. 770. De Ponto, lib. ii. ix. the time
of which we have presumptively ascertained to be
U. C. 765 or 766. is addressed to king Cotys, the
nephew of Rhescuporis; who must.at that time have
been alive, and unmolested. Cf. Tacitus, Ann. ii. 64.
APPENDIX.
—— “αν
—
DISSERTATION VIII.
The rate of travelling by sea or land, in ancient times, illus-
trated by Examples.
Vide Dissertation vi. vol. i. page 306. line 16. and Dissertation
ix. page 347. line 8.
ACCORDING to the rate ‘of travelling which pre-
vailed in ancient times, one who set out from Rome,
even on the first of June, would not be in Judza be-
fore the beginning or the middle of August. I shall
illustrate this assertion by a number of examples.
I. It was one of the regulations of Augustus®,
which he made U.C. 727. or before, relating to the
governors of provinces, that, ὅταν τῳ 6 διάδοχος ἔλθη, ἔκ
τε τοῦ ἔθνους αὐτίκα αὐτὸν (the predecessor in office) ἐξορ-
μᾶσθαι, καὶ ἐν TH ἀνακομιδῆ μὴ ἐγχρονίζειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐντὸς τριῶν
μηνῶν ἐπανιέναι. It is implied hereby that even in the
summer season, when governors commonly relieved
each other, three months were not more than sufficient
for the return of former governors to Italy; from the
remotest provinces, as well as from the nearest.
II. The intelligence of the death of Tiberius, which
happened on the 16th of March, three days before the
passover, U.C. 790”, was not received in Judea until
four days after the feast of Pentecost 4.
III. Herod, who set out from Judea, as we saw
in its proper place, about the Pentecost of U.C. 714.
May 10; and that by way of Egypt, which was
ο Dio, lili. 15. Ρ Tacitus, Ann. vi. 50. Suetonius, Tiberius, 73. Dissertation vii.
vol. i. 332. q Ant. Jud. xviii. v. 3.
On,the rate of travelling in ancient times. 383
the shortest route; did not arrive in Rome before the
third or fourth week in September.
IV. St. Paul, who set out in Easter week from Phi-
lippi', did not expect without great dispatch to reach
Jerusalem by Whitsuntide.
V. Philo, in Flaccum, speaks of the voyage from
Brundisium to Syria in general terms, as μακρὸν ὄντα
kal καματηρόνδ: and Jerome‘ describing its course
states that he left Italy in the month of August, flan-
tibus Etesiis ; yet did not reach Judza, except media
hyeme, et frigore gravissimo. And what he under-
stands by the winter months in this country, we may
learn from his Commentary upon Zacharias ": Octa-
vus apud Hebreos mensis, qui apud illos Maresvan...
apud nos November dicitur, hyemis exordium est: in
quo, statis calore consumpto, omnis terra virore nu-
datur, et mortalium corpora contrahuntur.
VI. Tiridates was nine months in travelling to Rome
from Armenia’; of which the first four or five might
be taken up in reaching the Hellespont; and the rest
in coming thence to Rome. And though he travelled
by land, and in the summer season, the journey by sea
would have taken up at least half the time.
VII. I mentioned the cases of Cicero, and of the
younger Pliny, previously. The letters of the former,
however, supply many instances of the rate of tra-
velling anciently: some of which I shall specify.
I. Epp. ad Fam. xii. Ep. x. xii. Cassius wrote to the
Roman senate from Syria, nonis Maiti, (May 7th;)
and his letter, though sent by special messengers, does
not appear to have been received before June 30. prid.
kal. Quin.
11. xvi. Ep. xxi. Letters, which appear to have been
t Acts xx. 6. 16. 5. Operum ii. §21.1.5. © t Operum iv. Pars iia. 459. ad
calcem. Adv. Ruffinum 110. iii. Cf. Epistole, 86. Ibid. 672. u Operun iii.
1707. ad calcem. Vv Dio, Ixiii. 2.
384 Appendix. Dissertation Eighth.
sent to Cicero the younger from Rome, reached him at
Athens forty-six days after the posts set out. ,
III. Epp. ad Atticum i. Ep. xx. A letter, written by
Atticus at Athens, zd. Februar. was received by Cicero
at Rome, rv. id. Mazz.
IV. v. Ep. xviii. xix. Cicero received in his pro-
vince a letter from Atticus who was at Rome, on the
forty-seventh day after the setting out of the post;
which he considers an instance of extraordinary dis-
patch. Not long before the same day, which was xz.
kal. Oct. (Sept. 21.) he had just received letters, written
at Rome xiv. kal. Sextiles, July 19: which was more
than two months after date.
VIII. The delays of travelling in the winter season
were necessarily even greater than usual at any other
time.
I. Nicias, in Thucydides, reminds the Athenians
that it was a four months’ voyage during the winter
from Sicily to Athens.
II. It was by extraordinary efforts of speed that the
death of Caius Cesar in Asia, a.d. vir. kal. Mar.
(Feb. 22.) was made known to Augustus, in Italy, a.d.
ιν. non. April. (by the 2nd of April*.)
III. The ship which brought the last letters of Cali-
gula to Petronius, and could not have set out long be-
fore Jan. 24. the day of his death, was three months
on the road’.
IV. The ashes of Germanicus, who died at Antioch
on the ninth of October, U.C. 772”. were not brought
to Rome by his widow, though she travelled, nhl in-
termissa navigatione hybernt maris*, much before the
usual period of the Ludi Megalenses; that is, the
fourth of April, U.C. 773.
wvi.2t. Χ Cenotaphia Pisana. y Jos. De Bello,iix.5. 2% Kalendarium
Antiatinum, apud Foggini. Tacitus, Ann. ii. 72. 4 Tacitus, Ann. iii. I.
b Ibid. 6.
On the rate of travelling in ancient times. 385
V. Herod, who as we saw was enabled to return
from Italy by the end of September, U.C. 714, was
yet not able to arrive in Judza before the spring of
U.C. 715.
To these examples of the rate of travelling anciently,
in the summer and the winter season, respectively, we
may add the following, which will apply alike to each.
I. The death of Germanicus Cesar at Antioch,
{which took place, as it has just been mentioned, on
the ninth of October.) was not communicated at Rome
until about the period of the Saturnalia»; that is, not
much before December the 19th‘, an interval of at least
two months.
II. The Emperor Otho is said to have died eleven
days before his birthday; that is, upon April the 17th,
U.C. 8224. Soon after Vespasian heard of this event
and of the accession of Vitellius, he was saluted empe-
ror® at Cesareaf,by the army which he was command-
ing in Judea, on the v. id. Julias, July the 11th, in
the same year. This was almost an interval of three
months.
III. The death of Nere happened the second week
in June, U. C. 8215, and the death of Galba on the
15th of January, U.C. 822". Upon hearing of the
death of Nero and the accession of Galba, Titus Cesar
was sent by Vespasian from Judza to salute the latter.
When he was arrived in Achaia, which means at
Corinth, within two or three weeks’ journey from Rome,
Titus heard of the assassination of Galbai*. He must
* Cf. Tacitus, Historie, ii, 1. of thirty Roman miles and up-
The journey from Brundisium to wards in a day. Strabo, vi. 3.
Rome, alone, would have occu- ὃ. 7. 299. reckons the distance
pied ten days’ time, at the rate 360 miles. Livy
b Suetonius, Caius, 6. ο Macrobius, Sat. i. ro. ἃ Dio, Ixiv. 15. Sueto-
nius, Otho, 2. e Suetonius, Vespasianus, 6. f Jos. De Bello, iv. x. 2—4.
& Dio, Ixiii. 29. Suetonius, Nero, 57. Jos. De Bello, iv. ix. 2. h Tacitus,
Historie, i. 27. 41. i Jos. De Bello, iv. ix. 2. 19. Dio, Ixv. 8.
VOL. III. CC
386 Appendix. Dissertation Eighth.
have heard of this event, then, about the beginning of
February, U. C. 822: between which time and the
death of Nero, U.C. 821, the interval would not be
less than eight months. And this interval must have
been taken up as follows. First, by the transmission
to Judzea of the news of the death of Nero and of the
accession of Galba; and secondly, by the journey of
Titus from that country as far as Corinth in Greece ;
where he was at the beginning of February. In this
case, we cannot allow less than two or three months to
the former; and four or five months to the latter.
IV. The death of Vitellius, according to Josephus,
took place on the third of Apellzeus, which answered
in that year to the fifth of our November; but the
news of his death did not reach Vespasian, who was
then at Alexandria, before the close of the winter quar-
ter!: and the same post, according to Suetonius,
brought him intelligence of the victory at Cremona;
which victory was obtained October 19. U.C. 822.
This was an interval of more than four months at least.
At the time when Vespasian was apprised of this
event, he dispatched his son Titus from Alexandria
against Jerusalem; and Titus, having effected his
march into Judea with no delay, sat down to the siege
of the city at the passover U.C. 823. or A.D. 70™.
The passover this year fell almost as late as possible, viz.
Livy, xxxvi. 21. Plutarch, Cato
Major, 14. B. C. 193, Cato the
censor certainly travelled from
Brundisium to Rome in five or
six days: but this was an extra-
ordinary instance of dispatch.
The usual length of the journey
was ten days. Luce minus de-
cima dominam venietis in Ur-
bem, | Ut festinatum non fa-
ciatisiter. Ovid, De Ponto, iv. v.7.
Brundusium decimis jubet hanc
adtingere castris. Lucan, v. 374.
which is in reference to Cesar’s
march from Rome to Brundi-
sium, U.C. 705.
1 De Bello, iv. xi. 4. 5. Tacitus, Historie, iii. 48. iv. 81. Suetonius, Vespa-
sianus, 7. Cf. Philostratus, Apollonius Tyan. ν. το. 237. C. Ὁ.
V. iii, I. xiii. 7.
m De Bello,
On the rate of travelling in ancient times. 387
on April 13°. Titus therefore could not have set out
from Alexandria earlier than the last week in March.
V. The news of the arrival of Vespasian at Rome
(who set out from Egypt while Titus was engaged on
the siege of Jerusalem) was brought to the latter at
Berytus when the siege was over; and his father’s
birthday, November the 17th, was at hand°*.
VI. The defeat of Cestius Gallus, U.C. 819, took
place on the eighth of Dius; and the news of it was
brought to Nero in Achaia; who dispatched Vespa-
sian, as Vespasian did Titus, from thence?. Titus
travelled by way of Alexandria, having made the pas-
sage in the winter season; so as to join his father at
Ptolemais in the spring4. The news of the misfor-
tune of Cestius, then, must have been brought to Nero
between the eighth of Dius, U.C. 819, (which in that
year corresponded to the middle of October,) and Ja-
nuary, U. C. 820: which was a three months’ interval :
and Titus must have arrived in Judea, after travelling
* Tacitus, Historie, iv. 53:
the rebuilding of the Capitol was
begun, U. C. 823, June 21,
when, according to Dio, Ixvi. 10,
and Suetonius, Vespasianus, 8,
Vespasian was at Rome, and
must consequently have arrived
by that time: yet Tacitus, His-
torie, iv. 52: he was still at
Alexandria, se@vo adhuc mari,
which means until the middle of
February at least.
The latter, however, is at va-
riance with himself, as well as
with the two former, on this
point : for, lib. cit. 81, he sup-
poses Vespasian to have conti-
nued at Alexandria until the
setting in of the Etesian winds:
which would be about the mid-
n Dissertation vii. vol. i. 333.
nius, Vespasianus, 2.
2. vii. 3.
dle of July. But it is needless
to observe that this very suppo-
sition refutes itself: as every
one knows that an Etestan or
North wind is almost directly in
the face of a voyage from Alex-
andria to Rome: and no one
who desired to sail with all ex-
pedition from the former to the
latter, would think of waiting
expressly for it. How far this
discrepancy may serve to dis-
credit the truth of the miracle,
which it is pretended that Ves-
pasian wrought during the time
of his waiting at Alexandria,
(which nevertheless has to a
certain extent the countenance
of Suetonius’ testimony) I leave
to others to decide.
© De Bello, vii. ii. 1. iv. 2. iii. 1. iv. 1. Sueto-
P Jos. De Bello, ii. xix. 9. xx.1. iii. i. 1. 3.
q iii. iv.
ceg
388 Appendix. Dissertation Eighth.
by way of Alexandria, and consequently by sea, about
the time of the month Artemisius, which would an-
swer to the beginning of April, U.C. 820.
VII. A decree of the Roman senate, in favour of the
Jews, was passed on the ides of December, U. C. 707,
in consequence of a command from Julius Cesar. This
command was given by Cesar when he was at An-
tioch in Syria, after the Alexandrian war". Now he
was not at Antioch later than the end of July: since on
August 2. he defeated Pharnaces at Ziela in Cappa-
docia*. The edict, therefore, had been issued origin-
ally in the month of July at least; and yet the Jew-
ish delegates did not arrive with it in Rome before the
month of December following.
VIII. Ignatius was at Smyrna, on his way to Rome,
when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans, τῆ πρὸ ἐννέα
καλανδῶν Σεπτεμβρίου, August 24': and he suffered, ac-
cording to his Martyrium ", immediately after his ar-
rival in the city, on December 20. If so, he was three
months, or more, on the road between Rome and
Smyrna only.
If the reader is curious to see more examples to the
same effect with those produced, he will find them in
the following instances.
U.C. 544. Lelius was thirty-four days in travelling
from Tarraco in Spain to Rome: Livy, xxvii. 7:
xxvi. 51.
Centesima lux est hee ab interitu Publii Clodii, et
opinor ultra quam fines imperii Populi Romani sunt,
ea non solum fama jam de illo, sed etiam letitia pera-
gravit: Cicero, Pro Milone, 35. |
The day of Clodius’ death was xiii Kal. Feb.: Ibid.10.
Epp. ad Atticum, vi. 1: between Cicero’s writing to
r Ant. Jud. xiv. viii. 5. 5 Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, vi. 3.
t Epist. ad Rom. x. Patres Apostolici, 869. A. B. u cap. 24. Ibid. root. B.
On the rate of travelling in ancient times. 389
Atticus, from Cybistra in Cappadocia, ad x Kal. Oct.
and the receipt of Atticus’ answer ad diem quintum Ter-
minalia, was jive months’ interval complete. Ad Att.
iv. 17, a letter from Ephesus written v Id. Sextiles
was received at Rome not before ix Kalends of No-
vember: and on this last day arrived also another
letter from Gaul, on the coast opposite to Britain, writ-
ten a. 4. vi Kal. Oct.
The decree for Cicero’s return from exile was passed
on the Kalends of June; his arrival at Brundisium
was on the Nones of August, his daughter’s birthday:
Pro P. Sextio, 31. 63. Now, Pro Plancio, 41, his exile
was spent at Thessalonica: so that it required two
months and upwards to travel from Rome to Thessa-
lonica and back, even in the summer season: Cf. Dio,
XXXVili. 17, 18; xxxix. 6. 9: Plutarch, Cicero, 33.
Philotimus, Czesar’s freedman, was at Rhodes on his
way to Rome, May 28; yet he did not arrive in Italy
until pridie Idus Sextiles, August 12: Cicero, Epi-
stole ad Att. xi. 19.23: Ad Fam. xiv. 24. 23.
Czesar was at Ziela in Cappadocia, Aug. 2, U.C.
707: yet, notwithstanding his characteristic dispatch,
he did not set out from Lilybaeum for Africa, before
vi Kal. Januarias, in the same year: De Bello Africano,
1. 2: Plutarch, Vita, 52.
Vitellius was declared emperor on the first of Ja-
nuary, U. C. 822. News that the eastern army had
sworn allegiance to him, did not reach him until the
middle of June at least: so that it required five months
for messengers to go to, and return from, the East:
Tacitus, Historie, i. 52. 12. 55: ii. 73. 70.
The embassy from the Seres and Indi, which Au-
gustus received at Antioch, U.C.'734, was four years
on the road: Florus, iv. 12. sect. 62.*
* In the Codex Apocryphus, cap. iii. speakingof the journey of
gt. Apostolics Historiz, lib.ix. St. Thomas to India, the writer
“es
390 Appendix. Dissertation Eighth.
The ambassadors from Vologeses, sent about mid-
summer, U. C. 815, arrived at Rome, veris principio,
U.C. 816: Tacitus, Ann. xv. 24. 12.17.
Ἡ δὲ πορεία ἐπ᾽ αὐτὰ (that is, the walls, not of Rome,
but of the empire as such) εἴ τις βούλοιτο ἰδεῖν, μηνῶν
τε καὶ ἐνιαυτῶν ἀρξαμένῳ βαδίζειν ἀπὸ τῆς πόλεως : Ari-
stides, xiv. 355. 1. 10. Ἐ
This same writer, ἱερῶν λόγων ii. Oratio xxiv. 481,
ad principium—giving an account of a journey of his
own, to Rome, from Smyrna or Pergamus, on which
he set out χειμῶνος μεσοῦντος, makes it appear that
though he travelled so expeditiously that even the im-
perial couriers did not outstrip him, yet he arrived at
his destination only ἡμέρᾳ ἑκατοστῇ ὕστερον ἢ ἐκινήθη οἵ-
It must be observed, however, that he was de-
tained sometime by sickness on the road.
κοθεν.
Ut mater juvenem, quem Notus invido
Flatu Carpathii trans maris squora,
Cunctantem spatio longius annuo,
Dulci distinet a domo. Horace, iv. v. 9.
Non ego cessavi, nec fecit inertia serum :
Ultima me vasti sustinet ora freti.
Dum venit huc rumor, properataque carmina fiunt,
Factaque eunt ad vos, annus abisse potest.
Ovid, Epp. De Ponto, iii. iv. 57.
Dum tua pervenit, dum littera nostra recurrens
Tot maria ac terras permeat, annus abit.
Ibid. iv. xi. τς.
makes it matter of wonder, that
he accomplished that journey in
three months, Quod alias trium
annorum spacio vix expedieba-
tur.
* This assertion is illustrated
by Procopius, De Bello Vanda-
lico, i. 1. in his description of
the extent of the empire as
it was under Justinian, or ra-
ther, at the time of the division
of the empire into the two por-
tions of the east and the west,
upon the death of Theodosius,
A. D. 395. The computation is
made in days’ journeys.
The same author, we may ob-
serve by the way, still reckons
it a year’s journey even by sea,
A. D. 533 or 534. from Con-
stantinople to Carthage and
back: see De Bello Vandalico
i. 10: the speech of John of
Cappadocia to Justinian.
On the rate of travelling in ancient times. 391
It illustrates the truth of both these observations,
that the news of Tiberius’ triumph, January 16, U. C.
765, did not reach Ovid at Tomi, before the autumnal
quarter of the same year.
1 Mace. viii. 19, it is called a very great journey
from Judza to Rome.
From Socrates, E. H. ii. xx. 102. A. it appears that a
year and six months was not thought too long an
interval, within which to notify to the bishops of the
East, the holding of a council at Serdica, in Illyri-
cum, and to bring them thither by the time appointed,
A. D. 347.
Chrysostom was seventy days in making the jour-
ney from Constantinople to Cucusus, the place of his
banishment, on the borders of Armenia Minor and Ci-
licia Campestris, under Mount Amanus. Yet he had
but to travel along Asia Minor, from west to east, and
he made the journey in the middle of the summer : Vide
Operumiii. 729. B. Epistola 234. The body of Theodo-
sius, who died at Milan, January 17, A. D. 395, did not
arrive at Constantinople, in order to be buried there, be-
fore November 8. in the same year; nor the army,
which had accompanied Theodosius into Italy, before
November 27: Socrates, E. H. v. xxvi. 295. C. and vi.
i. 299. D. 300. A.
If any one will take the trouble to follow the jour-
ney of Paula from Rome to Jerusalem, as related by
Jerome, Opera, iv. Pars 2%, 672 ad princip.: it will
appear that though she set out, exacta hyeme, aperto
mari; and travelled by the usual route, without being
detained, as far as can be collected from the account,
except for ten days at Cyprus, yet it was media hyeme
that she departed from Antioch for Judea.
Lastly, with regard to my assertion, (page 306.
vol. i.) that the journey from Judea to Rome, even in
cc 4
392 Appendix. Dissertation Highth.
the summer time, would require an interval of 815;
weeks and upwards, I shall conclude these citations
with the following passage from Theodorit : In Coloss.
ii. 17: Operum iii. 489.
Καλῶς δὲ προστέθεικε καὶ τὸ ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς. οὐδὲ “γὰρ
ἠδύναντο ταύτας πληροῦν. πῶς “γὰρ οἷόν τε ἣν τρὶς τοῦ ἔτους
ἀπὸ τῆς Φρυγίας εἰς τὴν ᾿Ιουδαίαν τρέχειν, ἵν᾽ ἐν τοῖς ‘Tepo-
σολύμοις ἐπιτελέσωσι κατὰ τὸν νόμον τὰς ἑορτὰς, καὶ μά-
λιστα τῆς πεντηκοστῆς πελαζούσης τῷ πάσχα: πλειόνων
γάρ ἐστιν ἢ πεντήκοντα ἡμερῶν ὁδός. That this compu-
tation is no exaggerated statement, may be fairly col-
lected from what is asserted’ by Evagrius, Εἰ. H. i. iii.
258. D. 259. A. respecting the distance of Ephesus in
particular from Antioch; which he estimates at as
nearly as possible thirty days’ journey. The regular
course of the journey from Ephesus to Jerusalem by
land would lie through Antioch.
The remark in question occurs with reference to
the absence of the bishop of Antioch from the
council of Ephesus, A. D. 421. The case of this bi-
shop, and the time taken up by his journey from his
own see to the place of the meeting of the council, is
an instance in point. The council condemned Nesto-
rius, June 28. A. D. 431. according to Socrates, E. H.
vii. xxxiv. 377. 1; and John, bishop of Antioch, with
his suffragaus, according to EXvagrius, i. v. 260. B. did
not arrive until five days after: though according to
the same authority, i. 111. 259. A. they had made such
haste to set out immediately after Easter, that they
had not stayed to celebrate τὴν καλουμένην νέαν κυριακὴν,
in their respective sees and churches. The νέα κυριακὴ
in question denotes the first Sunday after Easter: see
the Annotations of Valesius, zz /oco.
It seems, then, that John and his suffragan bishops
had set out before the first Sunday after Easter. The
On the rate of travelling in ancient times. 393
council was appointed to meet at Pentecost; and ac-
tually did so: yet John and his bishops did not arrive
until five days after the condemnation of Nestorius,
according to Evagrius, and fifteen days after the time
appointed for the meeting of the council, according to
the same authority, i. iv. 259. B. They had conse-
quently been eight or nine weeks on the road.
It is observable in particular, that Juvenal, bishop
of Jerusalem, according to Socrates, vii. xxxiv. 376. B.
arrived five days after Pentecost: so that, even sup-
posing him to have set out in the second week after
Easter, he had yet been six weeks on the road.
An instance indeed occurs in Procopius, De Bello
Persico, in which the period of seventy days was ap-
pointed for the going and returning of a messenger
from the banks of the Tigris near Nisibis, to Byzan-
tium. But this was in the case of an ambassador car-
rying proposals of peace from the Persian king, Chos-
roes, to the Roman emperor Justinian; who would
travel with proportionably greater dispatch. See Pro-
copius, De Bello Persico, i. 22. 111. 1, 3-112. 1. 11, 12:
19, 20. Nisibis was but two days’ journey distant
from the Tigris: see cap. 11. p. 54. 1. 17.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION IX.
On the natural or physical Notices of Time, supplied by the
Gospel Histories.
Vide Dissertation x. vol. i. page 366. line 7.
In any historical work which might omit to specify
the times of particular events, one of the simplest and
most obvious methods of supplying this defect, would
be by the help of allusions to the usual phenomena
of nature, which we know to be restricted to certain
seasons of the year; were any such to be met with
therein. For example, it is not stated by Thucydides
in what month of the Attic year the first invasion of
Attica by the Peloponnesians took place; but it is
mentioned that they entered the country, τοῦ σίτου ἀκμά-
Covros *, that is, when the corn was ripe, or beginning
toripen. The time of the invasion then is determined
to the spring quarter of the year: and if we knew that
the grain in Attica was commonly ripe in such and
such a month; July for example or August; we might
infer that the invasion took place in May or June. In
like manner, when we read in the book of Exodus”,
that the flax and the barley were both destroyed by
the plague of hail, because the barley was in the ear
and the flax was bolled, but that the wheat and the
rie were not smitten, because they were still in the
blade, or as some commentators understand it, δέν in
aii. 19. Cf.iv. 1. περὶ σίτου ἐκβολήν: on which Suidas Sirov, observes, Kat ot-
του ἐκβολὴν Θουκυδίδης, ὅταν ὃ στάχυς τῆς κάλυκος ἐκφύηται, οὐχ Bray ἐκ τῆς γῆς
ἀναδιδῶται τὰ σπέρματα. b Exod. ix. 31, 32.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 395
the ground; the time of this plague, we might collect,
was about the period of the vernal equinox; by which
time the flax and the barley in Egypt, if not fully
ripe, are commonly in a very forward state. Again,
when the spies on their return from searching the
land of Canaan, brought with them a ripe bunch of
grapes, and other autumnal fruits‘; this fact too is
sufficient to prove that the Israelites approached the
borders of Canaan, on the first occasion, forty days be-
fore the beginning of the autumnal quarter, at least.
But it is unnecessary to multiply instances of a si-
milar kind. The determination of the date of the ce-
lebrated battle of Pharsalia turns mainly on the deci-
sion of this question; viz. at what time the corn was
usually ripe in Thessaly. I will observe only that
the distinction of the course of events into summers
and wenters, for the purpose of history, is not only one
of the most ancient modes of distributing time, but one
which continued to be observed long after the origin
of regular history. Pausanias informs us that Rhia-
nus, the poetical historian of the second Messenian
war, expressed its duration by so many summers and
winters 4; and even Thucydides, though writing at a
period of great refinement, still makes use of this
simple and natural method, for distinguishing and ar-
ranging chronologically the events of the Peloponne-
sian war.
A narrative like that of our Saviour’s ministry,
which descends so minutely into particulars of every-
day occurrence, could scarcely fail to contain occa-
sional notices of these ordinary phenomena of nature ;
_ which, if they were sufficiently numerous to be collected
into one body, and sufficiently independent of each other,
¢ Numbers xiii. 23.
ἃ οὔρεος apyevvoto περὶ πτύχας ἐστρατόωντο,
χείματά τε ποίας τε δύω καὶ εἴκοσι πάσας. Messeniaca, lib. iv. 17.
396 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
to be distinguished asunder, would furnish so many
plain and intelligible criterions for ascertaining the du-
ration of the gospel ministry, with more or less of pre-
sion. It is surprising, therefore, that no commentator,
or harmonist, so far as I know, has yet thought of
bringing them together, and arguing from them seria-
tim: especially as the inference to which they lead
possesses the force of a demonstration, and is one of
which the lowest capacity is as competent to judge, as
the highest. It requires no learning or penetration to
be enabled to see that the ordinary appearances of na-
ture must belong to their proper seasons of the year :
and no great effort of reasoning to draw the conclusion
that between two different springs or two different
summers, there can never be less than one year’s in-
terval, though there possibly may be more.
It is my intention to confine myself at present, as
much as possible, to the simple consideration of the
notices in question; without taking into account a
single mark of time, which is not supplied by the inci-
dental mention of some natural phenomenon or other.
But I would have the reader to observe that this is done
ex abundanti; and because, for the object which we have
in view, these notices will be found sufficient. The force
of the argument which I propose to found on such in-
cidental allusions, will be best. appreciated if it is kept
single and distinct: though these indirect notes of
time do admit of being illustrated and confirmed by
others of a more direct kind. And as it is of no con-
sequence to the final result, in what order they are con-
sidered, I shall take the liberty of tracing them back-
wards; or of beginning with the latest first.
If one, then, who was as yet a stranger to the parti-
culars of the gospel history, were to read in St. Mat-
thew’s Gospel, xxi. 8, or St. Mark’s, xi. 8. that, on
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 397
some occasion, when Jesus was approaching to Jerusa-
lem, the multitude cut down branches, and strewed
them in the way: or if he were to see it related in St.
John’s, xii. 13. how the people of Jerusalem, hearing
that Jesus was coming to their city from Bethany,
took boughs of palms in their hands, and went out to
meet him: he would naturally conclude that these were
green branches; and therefore, that the time of the
year was either spring or summer.
If he were further to read either in Matt. xxiv. 32,
or in Mark, xiii. 28. or in Luke, xxi. 29, 30. that Jesus,
a day or two later than the preceding events, while dis-
coursing with his disciples, drew their attention to the
Jig-tree, and the rest of the trees, as already in leaf,
and giving promise of the approach of summer; he
would find his former conclusion so much the more
confirmed.
But if he were also to observe in Matt. xxi. 19. or
Mark, xi. 13. that, at a time between these two events,
mention occurred of a certain fig-tree, which was for-
ward enough to be full of leaves, but not forward
enough to have fruit upon it; he could not hesitate to
infer that the season of the year must have been ex-
actly the beginning of spring: that had it been earlier,
the tree in question would not have been in full leaf;
and had it been later it would most probably have
been able to furnish fruit.
All these events, then, which the reader would easily
perceive to be connected together, and to form what
are called the particulars of Passion week; if there
were no other means of discovering the time of the
year when they happened, would still be determined to
the beginning of the spring quarter; that is, neither
much earlier, nor much later, than the vernal equinox.
There would consequently be proof of ove spring in
398 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
' the course of the gospel history; which proof would be
furnished by the history of the proceedings in Passion
week.
If after this the same person were to find it men-
tioned, Matt. xiv. 19. or Mark, vi. 39. or John, vi. 10.
in the account of a miracle which he would plainly
perceive was one and the same event in all these rela-
tions ; that there was grass in the place where the mi-
racle took effect; and grass still green; and grass not
only green but in abundance: he would naturally in-
fer that as this miracle came to pass while there was
still an abundance of green grass on the ground, the
vernal freshness and the vernal luxuriancy of the sea-
son must be that characteristic of the time, which was
there meant.
If so, he would see proof in this instance also of
another spring; which must have been either the
same with that already discovered, or different from it.
A very slight perusal of the intermediate history would
satisfy him that it could not possibly have been the
same; and consequently, that it must have been dis-
tinct. The miracle of feeding the five thousand must
have happened in the spring of ove year ; and the pro-
ceedings in Passion week in the spring of another.
One year of the gospel ministry, at least, would conse-
quently thus be accounted for: for between two dif-
ferent springs there could not be less than a twelve-
month’s interval, though there might be more.
It may be said, however, that the circumstance of
green grass being to be found in abundance at the
time of this miracle, would not necessarily imply that
it was performed in the spring. Green grass might
perhaps be found in abundance, when the year. was
more advanced; during the summer, or even in the
autumnal quarter.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 399
In answer to this objection, it is necessary to remind
the reader of the natural peculiarities of Judea; and
of other hot countries in the East. In our own
climate, and wheresoever else the recurrence of rain,
or fine weather, is irregularly dispensed, the fields may
be clothed with their natural verdure, more or less
luxuriantly, at any season of the year, except the depth
of winter. But the case is not so with Judzea, and
the neighbouring regions. It must be familiar to every
one, who has read the Old or New Testament with
the least attention, that among the different modes of
describing what is notoriously shortlived and transient,
nothing is more common than allusions to the grass, or
the flowers of the field®. The foundation of these
allusions is a well known fact in the natural history of
those countries; that not only the flowers, but the
very verdure or grass of the fields, was peculiarly
liable to speedy decay.
The truth is, as I have had occasion to shew in the
present work, the season of rain in Judea is confined
for the most part to the autumn and the spring‘. The
autumnal rains commonly set in about the end of
October or the beginning of November: the vernal
rains as commonly terminated about the end of March,
or the beginning of April. From October to April,
then, or for a period of five or six months, green grass,
it may be said, is to be found in Judza. But in a very
short time after the termination of the vernal rains,
the sun becomes so powerful there as to burn up and
scorch the face of the ground ; which, being no longer
refreshed by rains, gradually withers away, and at last
becomes stript of its verdure. It is, therefore, with
e Job xiv. 2. Isaiah xxxvii. 27. xl. 6. 7.8. Psalm cii. 11. οἱ. 15. cxxix. 6. 7.
Matt. vi. 30. Luke xii. 28. James i. 10. 11. 1 Pet. i. 24. f Vide Disser-
tation xxxiv. vol. iii. 13—22.
400 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
singular propriety, as we may observe by the way,
that in our Saviour’s parable of the sower, the seed
which fell upon shallow ground, as it was represented
speedily to spring up, so was supposed speedily to pine
away ®. The sun had no sooner risen upon it, that is,
the sun when it had begun to grow warm and power-
ful, before it drooped and expired beneath the heat.
It was an infallible consequence of the dry season,
after it had set in, that the water courses were soon
exhausted ; and the people were reduced to depend
upon the supplies laid up in their cisterns. Jerome,
ad Amos iv. observes, Prohibuit autem imbrem, ut non
solum indigentiam panum, sed et sitis ardorem et
bibendi penuriam sustinerent. in his enim locis, in qui-
bus nune degimus, preeter parvos fontes, omnes cister-
narum aquze sunt: et si imbres divina ira suspenderit,
magis sitis quam famis periculum est». In Jerem. xiv:
Putandumque est, obsidionis tempore pluvias non fuisse,
ut sterilitatem obsessi sustinerent aquze. uno quippe
fonte Siloe, et hoc non perpetuo, utitur civitas: et
usque in preesentem diem; sterilitas pluviarum non
solum frugum, sed et bibendi inopiam faciti.
It happened, too, in some years that not only the
heat and drought, but the periodical visitation of lo-
custs and caterpillars, contributed to the speedy de-
struction of the natural verdure of the ground. So
Jerome, in Amos vii: after speaking of the appearance of
the locust, which commonly came with the beginning
of the latter or vernal rain, when every thing was
most luxuriant ; proceeds to describe it as followed by
that of the caterpillar*. Has autem locustas, que
primo Vere volitabant, bruchus innumerabilis sequeba-
tur, qui veniebat post imbrem serotinum, et appella-
¢ Matt. xiii. 5. 6. Mark iv. 5. 6. Luke viii. 6. h Opera, iii. 1401.
ad medium. i Ibid. 595. ad medium. k Ibid. 1432. ad principium.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 401
batur tonsor, vel tonsura regis; eo quod universa vasta-
verit, et nihil penitus reliquerit herb virentis in
terra.
The country being thus dried up, there was conse-
quently no green pasture to be found for cattle; which,
in defect thereof, were supported on hay, and straw or
stubble. So Jerome, in Isai. xxv: Hoc juxta ritum
loquitur Palzestinz et multarum Orientis provincia-
rum: que ob pratorum et foeni penuriam, paleas pra-
parant. esui animantium!: and Philo Judeus, De Jo-
sepho: τετάρτου δὲ, τοῦ καὶ τοῖς θρέμμασι χιλὸν τετα-
“μιεῦσθαι, τῶν ἀχύρων καὶ ἀθέρων ἐκ τῆς τοῦ καρποῦ καθάρ-
σεως διακρινομένων ἢ. Cf. also Gen. xxiv. 25..32: the
time of which transaction was obviously the middle of
summer.
The following passages from Maimonides, De rebus
altari interdictis", will sufficiently prove that it was
well understood in Judza, up to what time the cattle
might be fed upon green food; and when it became
necessary to support them upon dry.
Εχ oculis bestize distillans aqua tum denique cogno-
scebatur esse perpetua, cum ab Kalendis mensis Adar
ad Idus Nisan herbis viridibus bestia, et siccis ab
Kalendis Elul ad Idus Tisri pasta, non convaluisset.
Tribus igitur mensibus quotidie bestia ex herbis
viridibus et siccis, suo quibusque tempore, edebat ad
magnitudinem fici, aut eo plus, idque ante primum
pastum, post potum. χα.
Ut si ex preescripto virzdes herbas mense Adar toto,
et dimidio mense Nisan comederit, reliquoque dimidio
mense Nisan, et toto mense Tier szccas herbas, tribus
videlicet continuis mensibus: si ex herbis comederit
1 Operum iii. 215. ad calcem. m Operum ii. 57.1. 39. n Cap. ii.
§. 13. 14. 15.
VOL. III. Dd
Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
Ge a Te δ ἂν
nam quz ex preescripto herbas suo tempore
comedisset, nec sanata fuerit, heec sane vitio laborabat
perpetuo *.
These quotations distinctly prove that, generally
speaking, green pasture was no longer to be had after
the fifteenth of Nisan, which in a rectified year would
correspond very nearly to the fifteenth of April, on the
one hand; nor before the first of Adar, which on the
same principle would answer to the first of March, on
the other. This is enough to shew with what rapidity,
after the termination of the vernal rains, the country
was usually dried up. It is accordingly very observable
that at the time of the next miracle of feeding; though
it happened on the same locality as the former, and
though the people were made to sit down on the ground
then as well as before; yet there is no mention made
of grass. That second miracle took place when the
season was considerably more advanced; and when
the verdure of the fields had been long scorched up.
The absence, then, of such an allusion upon the latter
occasion, is just as natura] and characteristic a circum-
stance, as its presence upon the former.
Whether the effect of the autumnal rains was to
cause the grass to spring again, and to restore the face
of the ground, does not so clearly appear; though the
* According to Mr. Harmer,
(vol. ii, Chap. x. Observ. xxxvi.
466—469.) at Aleppo the cattle
are now turned out to feed at
the time when the people repair
to the gardens ; that is, in April
and May. The Jewish rabbis
say the time when this was
done in Judzxa was about the
Passover. The Arabs, accord-
ing to D'’Arvieux, turn’ out
their horses to grass in March.
Dr. Shaw and all other modern
travellers report that hay is never,
or very seldom, made in the
East. The cattle are fed on cut
straw. See Mr. Harmer, i.
Chap. iii. Observation viii. p.176.
note. Cf. 423. Chap. v. Observa-
tion ill. The same thing appears
not only from Genesis xxiv. 25.
32. but from Judges xix. 10.
which also was evidently in the
summer season.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 403
negative is most probable*. But even to admit that
it was so; still we may argue as follows: Did the
miracle in question take place not longer after the
commencement of the autumnal rains, than would suf-
fice to revive the country ; or not longer after the ter-
mination of the vernal, than while the natural fresh-
ness and luxuriancy of the fields continued unimpaired ?
If we adopt the latter supposition, then the interval of
time between the miracle in question and the proceed-
ings in Passion week, becomes one year at least. If
we adopt the former, then, unless it can be shewn
that the miracle happened in the autumnal quarter,
which immediately preceded the proceedings in Passion
week, this interval becomes five or six months more.
But this last supposition never can be shewn to
hold good: on the contrary, it is plainly refuted by
the gospel narrative itself. The same evangelist, St.
John, who mentions most distinctly the characteristic
circumstance of the grass, tells us, vil.1, that after
this miracle Jesus walked in Galilee; and then, at-
tended a feast of Tabernacles, vii. 2: and after that,
x. 22, a feast of Dedication: which things could not
have happened in any such order, if the miracle had
come to pass between the feast of Tabernacles and the
feast of Dedication, in the autumnal quarter before the
last Passover; as it must have done, if it happened
after the commencement of the autumnal, and not the
vernal rains in question. The autumnal rains never
set in before the feast of Tabernacles, but always
after it.
After this one objection, it is needless to state any
further arguments against the same supposition; though
* The Jewish writers (Mr. H. the herds were brought home.
ut supra) state accordingly that This would be before the end of
on the falling of the first rains October at the latest.
η49
404 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
many might be derived from the order and succession of
the particulars recorded by the other evangelists. We
have restricted ourselves also from noticing any indica-
tions of time, at present, except the natural ones: or
St. John would enable us to decide upon the question
at once, by referring to vi. 4. of his Gospel; which tells
us that, when the miracle was performed, the Passover
was nigh at hand. No reader of the Old or New Tes-
tament requires to be informed, that the Passover was
a spring feast ; not a summer, or an autumnal one.
It is more to the purpose to observe that, according
to Jerome, the appearance of things in Judzea, between
the feast of Tabernacles and that of Dedication, and
much more at any later period, until the recurrence of
the vernal equinox, would not agree to the circum-
stances of the picture drawn in the Gospels®: Octavus
apud Hebrzeos mensis, qui apud illos Maresvan, apud
AXgyptios Athir, apud nos November dicitur, hyemis
exordium est: in quo...omnis terra virore nudatur, et
mortalium corpora contrahuntur. And again?: Mensis
autem undecimus, qui appellatur Sabat .... est in acer-
rimo tempore hyemis, qui ab A.gyptiis Mechir, a Ma-
cedonibus Ifepirios, a Romanis Februarius appellatur.
The inclemency of the weather in the month of Novem-
ber or December, would be a serious objection to the
supposition of Jesus’ having been, at that time, in the
open air by night; and attended by such multitudes.
At the feast of Encenia, when St. John tells us it was
winter’, he was walking in Solomon’s porch, under
cover. The feast of Encznia began on the 25th of
the ninth month Casleu, answering in a rectified year
to December: and there is an instance in the book of
Ezra, when, on the twentieth of that month, the peo-
© Opera, iii. 1707. ad calcem: in Zach. i. p Ibid. 1709. ad calcem. 4x. 22.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 405
ple were unable to remain out of doors, because of the
cold and the raint *.
To resume, therefore, the prosecution of our subject.
If the reader were to look a little further, he would
find at Matt. xii. 1. Mark ii. 23. Luke vi. 1. an ac-
count, that on some occasion, when Jesus and his disci-
ples were walking through the fields of corn, the lat-
ter, being an hungered, began to pluck the ears, and to
eat them, as they went along; rubbing out the grain
with their hands. He would find it mentioned also
that this incident happened on a sabbath, to which
St. Luke gives the peculiar name οὗ σάββατον devtepo-
apwrov. The explanation of this mode of speaking
may require both learning and pains: but it requires
neither learning nor pains, to be enabled to compre-
hend that if the disciples were plucking and eating the
standing corn, the standing corn was fit to be plucked
and eaten; and consequently that harvest, if not yet
come, was near at hand.
As, however, there are two principal sorts of grain,
barley and wheat—which in Judzea do not arrive at
maturity together; it may at first sight be doubtful
which of the two kinds of harvest is here meant. But
whosoever is aware that, by the original appointment
of the law, the first fruits of barley harvest were every
year to be consecrated at the Passover, and those of
wheat harvest at the feast of Pentecost, will naturally
conclude, that barley harvest every year would be ripe
about the Passover, and wheat harvest about Pen-
* The truth is, according to
the report of modern observa-
tions, that the severity of win-
ter for the meridian of Judea
may be reckoned to begin about
Dec. 12, and to last until Ja-
nuary 20: during which time
the rains are extremely violent,
there is both frost and snow,
and the coldness of the weather,
especially at night, is peculiarly
bitter and pinching.
tx. Q. 13.
dDd3
406 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
tecost: between which there never could be more, nor
less, than seven weeks’ interval. The author of the
book of Enoch, a Jew of Palestine, gives this description
of the vernal quarter, as such, viz. the interval between
the vernal equinox, and, as he supposes, the ninety-first
day afterwards: In the days of his influence there 2s
perspiration, heat, and trouble. All the trees become
fruitful; the leaf of every tree comes forth; the corn
7s reaped; the rose and every species of flower blos-
soms in the field’. Philo Judzeus, in various places,
speaks to the like effect: τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς ἐαρινῆς ἰσημερίας
πρῶτον ᾿ἀναγράφει μῆνα Μωῦοσοῆς ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἐνιαυτῶν πε-
ῥιόδοις, ἀναθεὶς, οὐχ ὥσπερ ἔνιοι, χρόνῳ τὰ πρεσβεῖα μάλ-
λον, ἢ ταῖς τῆς φύσεως χάρισιν, ἃς ἀνέτειλεν ἀνθρώποις.
κατὰ γὰρ ταύτην τὰ μὲν σπαρτὰ, ἡ ἀναγκαία τροφὴ, τελειο-
γονεῖται" ὁ δὲ τῶν δένδρων καρπὸς ἡβώντων ἄρτι “γεννᾶται;
δευτέραν ἔχων τάξιν" ὅθεν καὶ ὀψίςγονός ἐστιν": κ', τ. λ. Cf.
206. 1.30. De Decem Oraculis: ἑβδομάδι δὲ τὰς μεγίστας
... οὗς καὶ τὰ δένδρα ἤνεγκεν----2.30, 1. 26. De Animalibus
Sacrificio idoneis: κατὰ τὸν λόγον τῶν ἰσημεριῶν ... . ἐν
ᾧ καιρῷ πάλιν ἀρχὴ σποράς----9909. 1. 30. De Septenario
et Festis Diebus: ὁ δ᾽ ἄρτος ἄζυμος ... μήπω καιρὸν ἐχόν-
eae
τῶν εἰς APLNTOV.
De Justitia": παρ᾽ ὃ καὶ ἡ φύσις οὐχὶ τὴν αὐτὴν προθε-
σμίαν ἀμφοτέροις ὥρισεν, εἰς THY τῶν ἐτησίων καρπῶν “γένε-
σιν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς μὲν εἰς ἄμητον ὥραν ἀπένειμε τὸ ἔαρ, τοῖς δ᾽
εἰς συγκομιδὴν ἀκροδρύων Nijryov θέρος. συμβαίνει “γοῦν κατὰ
τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον, τὰ μὲν ἀφαναίνεσθαι προανθήσαντα, τὰ δὲ
βλαστάνειν προαφανανθέντα. χειμῶνι μὲν γὰρ, φυλλοῤ-
ῥοούντων δένδρων, τὰ σπαρτὰ ἀνθεῖ" ἔαρι δὲ, κατὰ τοὐναν-
τίον, αὐαινομένων ὅσα σπαρτὰ, βλαστάνουσιν αἱ δένδρων
ἡμέρων τε καὶ ἀγρίων ὕλαι.
Whichever harvest, then, we suppose to be meant,
5 Ch. Ixxxi 18. _— t Opera, ii. 169. 1. 2. De Mose, lib. 3. ἃ Ibid. 370. 37.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 407
and consequently whichever feast to be current or just
past, yet between the time when the disciples were
eating the ears of corn, and that when Jesus was feed-
ing the five thousand; both being determined to the
spring quarter of the year; twelve months’ interval,
at least, must have transpired: and, consequently, be-
tween the same time and the proceedings in Passion
week, twenty-four months’ or two years’ interval, at
least. Nor is it possible to undermine this conclusion,
by endeavouring to diminish the interval in question.
The only supposition which might be made for that
purpose would be most preposterous and absurd ; viz.
that, peradventure the feeding of the five thousand
took place a little before the Passover, at the begin-
ning of the vernal quarter, and the walking through
the corn fields at the feast of Pentecost, a little before
its close. For on this principle the former event must
have -preceded the latter, and by a very short time
too: whereas in reality it happened after it; and with
a great number of incidents between them, some of
which would require several months in order to be
transacted. 3
Jesus fed the five thousand, the day after he retired
from Capernaum, apart with the twelve: he retired
with the twelve soon after their return from their mis-
sion: they were sent upon that mission after a circuit
of Galilee, which was begun from Nazareth: Jesus
went to Nazareth soon after his return to Capernaum,
from his first visit to Gadara: he went to Gadara on
the evening of the day when he first began to teach in
parables: he began to teach in parables, soon after his
return to Capernaum from a circuit of Galilee, which
began at Nain: he went to Nain the day after the or-
dination of the twelve: he ordained the twelve at the
close of a partial circuit, about the land of Gennesaret
Dd 4
408 Appendix. . Dissertation Ninth.
and the lake of Galilee: he set out upon that circuit in
consequence of the cure of the man with the withered
hand: he wrought that cure on some sabbath day after
the very sabbath, in which the disciples had walked
through the fields, and eaten of the ears of corn*. To
proceed, then.
If the reader continues his perusal, he will find at
John iv. 35. another reference to a natural phenome-
non, which is as distinct as any of the preceding. Οὐχ
ὑμεῖς λέγετε: Ὅτι ἔτι τετράμηνόν ἐστι, καὶ ὃ θερισμὸς ἔρ-
χεται; ἰδοὺ, λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐπάρατε τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ὑμῶν, καὶ
θεάσασθε τὰς χώρας, ὅτι λευκαί εἰσι πρὸς θερισμὸν ἤδη.
Whatsoever figurative meaning may be couched under
this literal description, yet as even symbolical repre-
sentations must have some foundation in reality, I
would ask a person of common capacity, and common
sense, to what he supposed our Lord was referring prv-
marily and obviously, in such language as this? Could
he possibly answer, that he was alluding to any thing
but the actual forwardness of the harvest, the actual
whiteness of the fields; which every one knows, to be
their natural appearance when the corn is fully ripe?
We have nothing to do with the allusion to seed time;
though that also admits of an easy explanation: the
stress of the argument turns upon the allusion to the
colour of the corn: which is a decisive criterion that,
when the words were spoken, the harvest was near at
hand. But I have already considered the passage else-
where, and as I think, have said enough there to shew
that, notwithstanding its metaphorical application to
something still future, it contains a plain and signi-
ficant reference to an actual present truthY: which
renders it unnecessary for me to dwell any longer upon
it here. :
x Matt, xii. 9. Mark iii. 1, Luke vi. 6. Y Dissertation xxi. vol. ii. 222—229.
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 409
Until, then, it can be proved that our Lord is al-
luding in the first place to any but the natural har-
vest, or that he would talk of the fields being white
against any harvest but that; I shall take the liberty
of understanding him in this obvious sense: and con-
sequently, shall infer that we have an indication of the
spring or the summer season in this passage, as well
as in the last considered. Is this season, then, the
same as in the former instance ? or is the harvest, now
at hand, that at which the disciples plucked the ears
οἵ corn? This could not be the case, unless both were
the barley harvest, or both were the wheat harvest, in
the same year: and either of these suppositions would
carry with it its own refutation. For when ¢his inci-
dent happened in St. John, Jesus had only just begun
his ministry in Judea, and had not yet begun it in
Galilee at all: when ¢hat happened in the other evan-
gelists, it had been going on in the latter country a
long while. This then is an incident at the very out-
set of his ministry, when he was on his way into Ga-
lilee itself, intending to commence his ministry there:
that is an event, sometime in the midst of its career:
so that it is impossible that they could be synchron-
ous events.
Let us make, however, all the allowance that we
ean: let us suppose that the harvest alluded to in St.
John, is barley harvest; and that alluded to in the
other evangelists is wheat harvest; both in the same
year. I say nothing of the absurdity of supposing the
Passover to be over, and yet barley harvest to be still
to come. I shall wave this objection; and merely
ask, What time would there be, on the hypothesis in
question, for the events related by St. John, before
Jesus came into Galilee after the imprisonment of the
Baptist: his continuance at Jerusalem, during the
410 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
Passover—his residence in Judza, for a longer or a
shorter time, after it—his journey through Samaria,
and two days’ residence at Sychar? What, for the
events related by St. John or by the other evan-
gelists, after the arrival in Galilee: the second visit to
Cana—the miracle in Capernaum—the visit to Na-
zareth—the settling at Capernaum—the call of the
four disciples—the first general circuit of Galilee, and
the several remaining particulars, which are on re-
cord—down to the call and the feast of Levi: which are
the last things mentioned before the incident relating
to the corn? That each οὗ these things could have
come to pass in its relative order, within five or six
weeks’ time, which is the utmost we should be able to
assign to them; is almost physically impossible. One
only of the number, the first general circuit of Galilee,
most prebably occupied more than twice the supposed
period of time. And besides this, there was a retire-
ment of our Lord’s into the desert, or less populous
parts of the country, which came between the cure of
the leper, and that of the paralytic: and though its
duration is not specified, it must have been of con-
siderable extent; for it is the only incident, which we
have on record, to fill up the interval between the time
of the cure of the leper, and the close of our Lord’s
first year; an interval which I apprehend to have
been of several months in duration. In short, to at-
tempt to compress within the limits of five or six
weeks, a series of events, which really extended from
the first Passover to the end of our Lord’s first year, is
manifestly preposterous and absurd.
Besides the leading and characteristic indications of
time, which have thus been pointed out, there are
others of a subordinate description, which might also
be mentioned. But as these minor notices come be-
Physical Notices of Time in the Gospels. 411
tween the principal ones, though they might serve to
distribute and distinguish the order of intermediate
events, they would not be so useful for establishing
such comprehensive divisions of the whole length of
our Saviour’s ministry, as its integral periods or years.
To sum up, therefore, the results of the preceding
survey.
Two evidences of harvest time, and two of spring
time—each in a distinct year—which we have dis-
covered—even if they belonged to four successive years,
would yet imply an intermediate duration, from first
to last, of three complete years at least. The method,
therefore, which we have adopted to ascertain the
length of our Saviour’s ministry, has enabled us to de-
termine its minimum, but not its maximum; viz. that
it could not have lasted less than three years’ time,
though it might have lasted more. But upon this par-
ticular question the determination of such a minimum
is equivalent to that of a maximum. No harmonist, or
commentator, I conceive, would see reason to extend
the duration of our Lord’s ministry beyond this period
of three years, even though the necessity of the case
might oblige him +o admit that it must have lasted so
long. And when we consider that the opinion which
restricts its duration to the term of a single year, or
of one year, and a few months of a second; is one
which comes recommended by a prescription of very
remote antiquity, and by the sanction of modern har-
monists and commentators of great celebrity; if the
above considerations did no more than expose the
falsehood of this particular notion, in a manner so
plain and intelligible to every one’s capacity, as I trust
they have now done, they would still render an essen-
tial service to the cause of truth in general, and to the
business of a gospel harmonist in particular.
412 Appendix. Dissertation Ninth.
I began with an admonition to the reader, that I
proposed to confine myself solely to one class of the
indications of time, which the gospel history might
furnish. That he may see, however, what other argu-
ments the same history supplies, conspiring with the
above in the results to which they lead, he may refer
to the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth, the fifteenth,
the nineteenth, the twenty-first, the twenty-third, the
thirtieth, the thirty-first, and the thirty-fourth of my
Dissertations: to which the present must be considered
supplementary. As these various modes of resolving
the same problem, which is ‘the duration of our Sa-
viour’s ministry, are entirely independent of each other,
and yet agree precisely in the same result; it becomes
a natural inference that they coincide in one result,
only because they coincide with the truth. On any
other supposition but that, the chances of a coinci-
dence between them would be precarious indeed.
APPENDIX.
>
=
DISSERTATION X.
On the time of the imprisonment of John the Baptist, and of
the marriage of Herod and Herodias.
BOTH the abovementioned facts are attested by Jo-
sephus; but in conjunction with another event, the
war between Herod and Aretas, which arose out of
the marriage in question. The place of this war in
the Antiquities is undoubtedly towards the very close
of the reign of Tiberius. For Tiberius, having heard
of the defeat of Herod, had written to Vitellius the
president of Syria, to give him orders to punish
Aretas?; and Vitellius was on his way to execute these
orders when he received in Jerusalem at the time of
some feast >, (which the context demonstrates to have
been the Pentecost of U.C.790.) the news of the death
of Tiberius; which death took place on the 16th of
March in that year. These particulars are attested in
general by Philo°.
It would seem to follow from this representation,
that the imprisonment of John, and the marriage of
Herod and Herodias, must have coincided with the
last year of the reign of Tiberius. It may be proved,
however, even from the testimony of Josephus, that
this was not the case.
First ; the construction which the nation at large
put upon the defeat of Herod, as a judgment for the
death of John“, proves nothing upon the point in
a xviii.v. 1. b Ibid. 3. 6 Operum ii. 580. 1.20---28 : 588. 1. 1o—20.
De Virtutibus. ad Ant. Jud. xviii. v. 2.
414 Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
question. Between the twelfth and the twenty-third
of Tiberius, until this very rupture with Aretas, there
was no war, nor misfortune of any kind, affecting
either Herod or any other of his family, on which
such a construction could have been put. This then
was the first incident of the kind.
The defeat of Herod is ascribed to the treachery of
certain exiles belonging to the tetrarchy of his brother
Philip, who were serving at that time in his army °.
Upon the death of Philip, in the first half of U. C. 787.
his tetrarchy was annexed to Syria’. He was alive
then at the time of this battle: and still in possession
of his tetrarchy. The battle therefore could not have
been fought before the first half of U.C.'787. at the
latest.
John the Baptist was both imprisoned and put to
death in Machzerus*: Macheerus therefore both at his
imprisonment, and at his death, must have been in the
possession of Herod. But when the daughter of
Aretas made her escape, she fled to Machzerus, τότε
πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελῆ". Between the time then of the
imprisonment and the death of John, and the time of
this escape, Machzrus had passed out of the hands of
Herod into the hands of Aretas. Nor was this an im-
probable event; for it stood upon the confines of their
territories respectively ; and even before the time of
this flight, they were involved in a dispute, relating to
their separate jurisdictions, in the course of which
forces had been levied on either side*.
* To these forces, onthe part outset of the ministry of John ;
at least of Herod, I would refer though, from Ant. xviii. vii. 2. it
the allusion to καὶ στρατευόμενοι, may be collected that Herod
persons who were then serving must have kept up at all timesa
as soldiers, Luke 1.14, at the kind of standing army.
e Ant. Jud. xviii. v. 1. f xviii. iv. 6. Ε xviii. v. 2. h [bid. 1.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 415
It is evident from the Gospel account, that, at the
time of the death of the Baptist, the daughter of Hero-
dias was living with her mother; and was conse-
quently still unmarried. Josephus bears witness that
Herodias, by her first husband Herod Μαριάμμης, had
a daughter called Salome; who was not yet married
at the time of her mother’s separation from her father,
but was married after it; first to her father’s brother,
Philip the tetrarch; and again, upon his death, to
her cousin Aristobulus, son of Herod of Chalcis her
mother’s brother’. Now Salome could not have been
married to Philip after the twentieth of Tiberius; but
she might be before it. Consequently, her mother could
not have been separated from her first husband after
the same year; but she might have been before it.
The Gospel accounts also imply that this daughter
was not merely unmarried, but still a young girl, at
the time of the death of John. Both St. Matthew and
St. Mark call her copacvov—the same term which each
of them applies to the daughter of Jairus; who was
certainly not more than twelve years of age. The age
of puberty in females, according to the Jewish law,
was twelve years and a day, or nominally thirteen
years; and the same age at Rome, according to Dio,
was also fixed at twelve. I think, then, that this term
would not be applied to any one after thirteen or four-
teen years of age. From fourteen to sixteen was a
common age of marriage, both in Greece, and in
Rome, and in Judza*. Let us suppose, then, that
* Τρῆυν ἔγημε Φιλῖνος, ὅτ᾽ ἦν
νέος" ἡνίκα πρέσβυς | δωδεκέτιν᾽ ΠΠα-
φίῃ δ᾽ ὥριος οὐδέποτε. Antholo-
gia, ii. 175. Leonide Alexan-
drini vii. Τὰν orddav ἐχάραξε
1 Ant. Jud. xviii. v. 4.
Βιάνωρ, οὐκ ἐπὶ ματρὶ, | οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ τῷ
γενέτᾳ, πότμον ὀφειλόμενον" | παρ-
θενικᾷ δ᾽ ἐπὶ παιδί. κατέστενε δ᾽,
οὐχ Ὑμεναίῳ, | ἀλλ᾽ ᾿Αἴδᾳ νύμφαν
δωδεκέτιν κατάγων. Ibid. 182.
k liv. 16.
416 Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
_ Salome was married to Philip in the fifteenth year of —
her age. She had no children by Philip; but three
sons by her next husband. We may infer, therefore,
that she was married to him not long before his death.
Let us suppose they were married in the eighteenth of
Tiberius. If Salome was fifteen in the eighteenth of
his reign, she would be eleven in the fourteenth ;
when John the Baptist was put to death.
Herodias, the mother of Salome, was betrothed to
her first husband, Herod the son of the second Ma-
riamne®, as I shewed before?, in 1]. C. 749: when
she was probably two years old. And that this match
was consummated accordingly we have the assurance
of Josephus 4; and there is no reason whatever to call
the fact in question. The marriage of Herod and the
second Mariamne, we have seen", was placed by Jose-
Ejusdem xxxvili. Λέκτρα σοι ἀντὶ
γάμων ἐπιτύμβια, παρθένε κούρη, |
ἐστόρεσαν παλάμαις πενθαλέαις γενέ--
ται. | καὶ σὺ μὲν ἀμπλακίας βιότου
καὶ μόχθον ᾿Ελευθοῦς | ἔκφυγες" of
δὲ γόων πικρὸν ἔχουσι νέφος. | δω-
δεκέτιν γὰρ μοῖρα, Μακηδονίη, σε
καλύπτει, | κάλλεσιν ὁπλοτέρην, ἤ-
θεσι γηραλέην. Ibid. iv. 73. Pauli
Silentiarii lxxxili. ἐπὶ τῇ ἰδίᾳ bv-
γατρὶ, is ὄνομα Μακεδονία. Non-
dum annos quatuordecim im-
pleverat, . . . jam destinata erat
egregio juveni, jam electus nu-
ptiarum dies!. Berenice, the
sister of the younger Agrippa,
was sixteen when she was mar-
ried to her uncle Herod of Chal-
cis; and her sister Drusilia was
fifteen or sixteen when she was
married to Azizus™. If Aristo-
bulus, the brother of the first
Mariamne, was only sixteen
1 Pliny, Epistole, v. τό.
494- q Ant. xviii. v. 4.
m Ant. Jud. xix. ix. I. XX. Vii. I.
ο De Bello Jud. i. xxviii. 2. Ant. xvii. i. 2.
U.C. 717". Mariamne his sister,
who was married to Herod the
same year, could not be more
than seventeen; and _ perhaps
was only fifteen. In like man-
ner it is capable of proof that —
Julia, the daughter of Augustus,
was married to her first hus-
band, Marcellus, either in her
fourteenth or her fifteenth year ;
Agrippina, the mother of Nero,
was married to Domitius Ahe-
nobarbus at a similar age; Dru-
silla, another of the daughters
of Germanicus, was married to |
Cassius Longinus in her six-
teenth year; and Julia, or Li-
villa, her youngest sister, to
Marcus Vinicius in her fifteenth ;
and Octavia, the daughter of
Claudius, was married to Nero
in her twelfth. On this subject
cf. Dissertation xii. vol. i. 399.
n xv. ii. 6.
P Dissertation xiv. vol. i. 493,
r Dissertation ν. vol. i. 257, 258.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 417
phus, U.C. 733 ; in which case no child could have been
born from it before U.C.734. If a child was then
born, he would be only fifteen years old, U. C. 749,
when Herodias was probably two; and he would be only
_ twenty-nine, U.C. 763, when Herodias was probably
sixteen. And the age of thirty was as common an age
of marriage for males, as the age of fifteen or sixteen
was for females. It is probable, then, that they were
married 1]. C. 708 or 764: and as Herodias had only
one child by her first husband, and none, that we read
of, by her second, it is very probable that she might not
bear even that one child early. If this child was eleven
in the fourteenth of Tiberius, she must have been born
in the third; which would be seven years after U.C.
763, and six years after U.C.'764. Moreover, if He-
rodias herself was but sixteen or seventeen, U. C. 763
or 764, three or four years before the first of Tiberius,
she would not be more than thirty-two or thirty-three
in the twelfth or the thirteenth: at which time she
would be still a young woman, and capable of capti-
vating a second husband.
Herod Agrippa, the brother of this Herodias, was
educated at Rome, in company with Drusus, the son
of Tiberius*: Berenice his mother, and Antonia the
aunt of Drusus, having been intimate friends. Upon
the death of Drusus, which happened U. C. 776. Tib. x.
eneunte, or ix. ereuntet *, the emperor forbade his son’s
acquaintances his presence; that his grief for his loss
might not be renewed by seeing them, and by con-
versing with them as before. The fact is, that U.C.
779, about midsummer, consequently in the latter half
* There is a coin of this Dru-— ed on the second year of his
sus extant, which proves him to ‘Tribunitian authority, some time
have been alive when he enter- in U.C. 776. Eckhel, vi. 204.
s Ant. Jud. xviii. vi. 1. t Tacitus, Ann. iv. 8. Dio, lvii. 22. 24.
VOL. ΠΙ. Ee
418 Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
of his twelfth year, Tiberius retired first to Campania,
and ultimately in the course of the next year to
Caprez ": and this is what Josephus here alludes to.
Agrippa soon after this, being reduced to great dis-
tress, retired to Malatha in Idumezav. How long he
continued there does not appear. But when his diffi-
culties were daily becoming greater, and he was begin-
ning to think of suicide, his wife Cyprus, who had
accompanied him, at length represented his state by
letter to his sister Herodias— Ηρώδη τῷ τετράρχη συνοι-
κούση.
We have here, then, an intimation that this couple
were united in marriage at a time, which may very
probably be conjectured as neither earlier than the
thirteenth, nor later than the fourteenth or fifteenth of
Tiberius ; in one or other of which years this applica-
tion must have been made. My opinion is that it was
in the last, U. C.'782, at which time the city of Tibe-
rias, whensoever it began to be built, was now com-
plete; for Agrippa had a dwelling assigned him there,
and was made ’Aryopavouos or Adile of it. St. John’s
Gospel, vi. 1. 23, at the beginning of our Lord’s third
year, which was U.C. 782. ineunte, clearly supposes
the same thing.
Agrippa did not stay long in this dependent situa-
tion; and, Ant. xviii. v. 3. he returned it is said to
Rome, ἐνιαυτῷ πρότερον ἢ τελευτῆσαι TrBéprov.
If this, however, is to be understood of the first return
since he last left it, posterior to the death of Drusus,
Josephus is at variance with himself. For in this case,
Agrippa returned some time soon after U.C. 789. ine-
untem ; for Tiberius died U.C. 790. eneunte.
Now on leaving Tiberias, he retired for a time to
u Tacitus, Ann. iv. 57. 59. 67. Suetonius, Tiberius, 39, 40. Cf. Tacitus,
Ann. iv. 62. -v Ant. Jud. xviii. vi. 2.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 419
the court of Flaccus, the president of Syria”: nor was
it until after residing there some time, and a misun-
derstanding which at last arose between himself and
Flaccus, that he finally departed, by way of Egypt, (as
Philo also attests,) to Rome*. Consequently, Flaccus
was alive when Agrippa left Syria. But Flaccus was
not alive after the nineteenth of Tiberius; for he died
in office at the beginning of his twentieth year, U.C.
7807, as is proved by one of the coins of Antioch,
which bears his name, compared with the above quoted
passage from Tacitus2: and he was succeeded early in
the course of U.C. 787, by Vitellius**. Agrippa then
could not have left Syria later than U.C. 786. cneunte,
which would be four years, and not one year, before
U.C. 790. eneuntem. Josephus himself shews” that
in the twentieth of Tiberius, which answers partly to
U.C. 786. and partly to U. C. 787. Vitellius, and no
longer Flaccus, was now in office in Syria.
Nor indeed is it probable that the particulars which
begin to be related from the time of this return, to the
date of the death of Tiberius’, could all have been
comprehended in a single year; especially as the im-
prisonment of Agrippa alone occupied six months of
the interval ‘+.
* It is true, Vitellius was
consul U.C. 787. but the con-
sulate, at this time, was held
only for a few months. He
might consequently still be dis-
patched into Syria by the mid-
dle of the same year: and this
is implied by Suetonius, (loc.
cit.) when he describes him as
Ex consulatu Syriz przpositus.
w Ant. Jud. xviii. vi. 2.
versus Flaccum.
Vitellius, 2.
iv. 5. 6.
Vi. 4.
x Ibid. 3.
Tacitus, Ann. vi. 32.
€ xvill. vi. 4—I0.
f Tiberius, 65.
y Tacitus, Ann. vi. 27.
Pliny, H. N. xv. 21.
ἃ Ibid. 7.
8 Tacitus, Ann. vi. 25. Cf. Dio, lviii. 12.
+ Besides, when he first re-
turned, Tiberius was at Ca-
pres. According to Suetoniusf,
he did not stir from the Villa
Jovis in that island, for nine
months after the death of Se-
janus, which was xv. kal. of
November 8, October 18. U. C.
784. Tib. xviii. ineunte. and
while he was still there, U.C.
Ad-
a Suetonius,
b Ant. Jud. xviii.
De Bello, i. ix. 5. © Ant. xviii.
Philo Judeus, ii. 521. 1, 25—28.
2 Eckhel, iii. 279.
EeQ
420 Appendix.
Dissertation Tenth.
It is asserted by Josephus, that Herod the tetrarch
fell in love with Herodias, as he was entertained in
784. or 785. he must have sent
for Caius Cesar first to join
him; for this he did in Caius’
twentieth year, that is, before
August 31. U. C. 785). But
Tacitus shewsi, that soon after
the beginning of U.C. 785. he
was in the neighbourhood of
the city; nor does he mention
any actual return to Caprez be-
fore the beginning of U.C. 786k.
᾿ Consequently the return, which
was before alluded to!, could
be no return to Capree as
such, or only a proleptical allu-
sion to this return in U. C. 786.
According to Dio also, at the
beginning of U.C. 786. Tibe-
rius was within thirty stades of
Rome™ ; at which time he dis-
posed of his grand-daughters in
marriage, as Tacitus likewise
shewed®. In U.C. 787. he was
at Tusculum® ; in U. C. 788. at
AntiumP; nor did he ever re-
turn to Capree ; but when he
was on his way thither, he was
surprised by his last sickness at
the Villa Luculli, or Misenum4 ;
where, U. C. 790, ineunte, he
breathed his last.
Josephus also shews that he was
in Campania six months before
his death ; and though he sup-
poses him to have returned to_
Caprez prior to that event, this
is a mistake easily accounted
h Suetonius, Caius, to. 8.
ΤῊ lvili, 20. 21. 24.
i Annales, vi. I.
n Annales, vi. 15.
for. He was actually repairing
to Caprez, when he fell sick and
died. :
It would seem, then, that the
only time when Agrippa could
have found the emperor at Ca-
prez before the death of Flac-
cus, was either in his eighteenth
year, between U.C.784 and U.C.
785. medium, or just at the mid-
dle of his nineteenth, U.C. 786.
ineunte. And this is confirmed
by the mention of Tiberius’
soon after coming to Tuscu-
lum"; for that was the visit to
Tusculum which Dio placed
U.C. 787; and Agrippa had
been some time arrived before
it.
The mention of Piso as pre-
fect of the city’ when Agrippa's
servant Eutychus was brought
to trial, if this was the same
Piso who died in office, U.C.
785. medio ;t would prove the
return of Agrippa to have been
earlier than U.C. 785. medio ;
were it not that a certain Piso
is still spoken of as prefect ἃ in
the last year of Tiberius. Ac-
cording to Dio, and by an obvi-
ous correction of the text, A¢ulius
Lamia succeeded to Piso U.C.
785. and according to Tacitus’,
Lamia also must have died in
office, U.C. 786. The next pre-
fect, according to Seneca*, was
k Ibid. 15. 20. 1 Tbid. 1.
© Dio, lviii. 24. Ρ Ibid. 25. Tacitus,
Ann. vi. 39. Cf. 20. For three years, consequently, though not at Rome, still he was
absent from Capree. Hence, Plutarch, viii. 377. De Exsilio: Τιβέριος δὲ Καῖσαρ
ἐν Kampéas ἑπτὰ ἔτη διῃτήθη μέχρι τῆς TeAcvTHs—would admit of explanation.
ᾳ Dio, lviii. 28. Tacitus, Ann. vi. 50. Suetonius, Tiberius, 72. 73. r Ant.
XViili. vi. 6. 5 xviii. vi. 5. τ Tacitus, Ann. vi. 10. 11. Dio, lviii. 19. 20.
u Ant. xviii. vi. το. v Annales, vi. 27. w Horace, i. xxvi. and iii. xvii.
are both addressed to AAlius Lamia; and were written about U. C. 731. Cf. also
Epp. i. xiv. 6. and Carminum i. xxxvi. 7; the last of which implies that Lamia
was then a young man ; so that he might be alive, but he would necessarily be very
old, U. C. 785. x Epistole, 83. 8.13. -
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 421
the house of her first husband—oreddouevos ἐπὶ ‘Po-
yys®"—when preparing to go to Rome. There is
no mention of his ever going to Rome, after he be-
came tetrarch, except on this occasion, and on the
last, 0. Ὁ. 792; when he was deposed by Caius. The
building however of Tiberias had been projected by
him in honour of Tiberius °—whose intimate friend
Cossus ; that is, Cossus Corne-
lius Lentulus, consul in U.C.
753; and therefore, probably
an old man in U. C. 786: which
makes it less surprising that
Sanquinius Maximus is men-
tioned as in office U.C. 792, in-
eunte’.
Josephus then has unques-
tionably made a mistake either
in his first or his _ second
mention of Piso; and the last
supposition is much the more
probable of the two. For after
the death of Piso, the succes-
sion of prefects is manifestly
obscure and intricate ; and each
Was a very short time in office.
But before his death Piso had
been in office twenty years; and
was much more likely to be ge-
nerally known. Besides, the first
of these occasions was an im-
portant one in the history of
Agrippa; but the last had no-
thing to do with it. The trial
of Eutychus ultimately led to
his master’s imprisonment. I
think then we may trust to the
accuracy of the first allusion:
which is in fact placed beyond a
question by the circumstance
y Dio, lix. 13.
just before noticed: viz. that
this Piso was prefect of the city
some time before Tiberius came
to Tusculum, that is, before
U.C. 787. In this case Agrippa
must have been in Rome before
the middle of U. C. 785. that is,
the end of Tiberius’ eighteenth
at least. The note of time,
therefore, xviii. v. 3. is either
an oversight of the writer’s, or
it refers to some other return
of Agrippa’s, not to his first.
Eutychus had been long in con-
finement after he had been im-
prisoned by Piso, before he
was admitted to an audience of
TiberiusZ. In the mean while
his master might have gone
back to Judea—to see his wife
and children, whom he cer-
tainly left there at first@—and
have again returned to Rome,
a year before the death of Tibe-
rius. Agrippa, during his im-
prisonment, as well as before,
was much indebted to the good
offices of Antonia, the grand-
mother of Caius. Suetonius,
Caius, 10, and 23: she was still
living both U. C. 785, and U.C.
790, or 791.
@ xvili. vi. 3. Ὁ xviii.
Ee$
422 Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
he was—and from the place of the fact in the War,
we may reasonably conclude that he founded it upon,
or soon after, that emperor’s accession to the throne.
Hence if it took up the same length of time as
Ceesarea, in his father’s instance, it would not be ready
to dedicate under ten or eleven years afterwards. Its
foundation is placed by Eusebius in Chronico, U.C.
780; but the date of its coins, as determined by car-
dinal Noris, or by Eckhel», requires it to be placed not
earlier than U. C. 770, nor later than U.C. 775: and
this very discrepancy confirms our conjecture. It might
have been begun in U.C.770: but it could not have
been finished before U.C.780. The journey to Rome
might be preparatory to its dedication.
Let us suppose then that the journey in question
was made about this time. We may take it for grant-
ed it would be made in the spring quarter of the year.
If so, in the spring quarter of U.C. 780. Herod would
be lodging in his brother’s house: and it is plainly
implied by Josephus, that he stayed long enough with
him not merely to fall in love with his wife, but to
take the necessary steps for their future union—to
enter into the usual spousal contract—by which they
were to divorce themselves from their existing con-
sorts, and then to be married to each other. All this,
might be arranged in the spring of Tiberius’ thirteenth
year, U.C. 780.
Now this engagement was not so secret, but that it
became known before it could be executed even to the
parties most injured by it. The daughter of Aretas
at least was aware of its existence, before she was
actually divorced ; and the object of her escape to her
father seems to have been to anticipate this divorce by
Ὁ Eckhel, iii. 427. Eusebius, Chronicon Armeno-Latinum, ad annum Abra-
ami 2043.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 423
a voluntary flight. If so, there is no need to have
recourse to supernatural modes of communication, to
bring it to the knowledge of the Baptist. The exist-
ence of such a contract, however, though it was not
yet completed, was equivalent in every sense to a mar-
riage; and the language ascribed to John, in each of
the Evangelists, Matt. xiv. 4. Mark vi. 18: It is not
allowed thee ἔχειν τὴν “γυναῖκα τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ cov—applies
as properly to a marriage intended, as to a marriage
completed, between them*. The most probable time
when the remonstrance on the part of the Baptist would
take place, is upon his first hearing of the contract: for
to denounce the crime beforehand was, if possible, to
prevent its commission. His message would probably
be sent by a disciple ; and the reception of his message,
at the very juncture when the passion of Herod, the
influence of Herodias, Herod’s desire of present con-
cealment, and his regard to the reputation and au-
thority of John, now at their highest, were most likely
to combine together ; would be the necessary prelude
to his imprisonment. Both love, and pride, and policy,
would concur to suggest this measure. It would not
have been prudent in Herod to leave John at large
behind him; nor would he continue his journey until
* Nor is it any objection, that
St. Mark just before says, ὅτι
αὐτὴν ἐγάμησεν : for so also does
Josephus express himself, con-
cerning Herod and Mariamne ;
though he had only espoused her,
and they were not married until
six or seven years afterwards:
and about the contract of Mar-
cus, the son of Alexander the
Alabarch of Alexandria, to Ber-
nice the daughter of Herod
Agrippa®; though that match
was never consummated.
Gen. xix.14: ‘And Lot went
“ out, and spake unto his sons in
“ Jaw, which married his daugh-
“ters:” and yet they were only
espoused to these sons in law.
The truth is, espousals among
the Jews were equivalent to
marriage, and the breach of the
spousal contract in either of the
parties amounted to the crime
of adultery.
© De Bello, i. xii. 3. xvii. 8. Ant. xix. v. i.
Ee 4
494. Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
he had committed him to prison: and in selecting Ma-
cherus as the place of his confinement, he seems to
have been desirous to remove him as far off as pos- —
sible“. If so, the imprisonment of the Baptist would
take place some time in the spring.
Nevertheless, I think there is reason to believe that
the remonstrances of John were attended by some
good effect, and delayed for a time the consummation
of this incestuous union. It is not credible that Herod
would hear him gladly, and do many things by his ad-
vice®, while he contmued to disregard him in this re-
spect. Still less credible is it that John would cease
to denounce the commission of this crime; which even
Josephus acknowledges‘ to be a flagrant violation of .
the law. But what is chiefly to be observed, Hero-
dias herself could scarcely have continued to entertain
so deadly a resentment against him, after her ambition
had once been gratified by obtaining its wish. There
is no mode of accounting for this long-cherished ani-
mosity, with which, as the Evangelist tells us, she fast-
ened upon him and clung to him, as some ferocious
beast to its prey’, except by supposing that the life
and authority of John stood still between herself and
the crown of Galilee.
If this was the case; even when Herod was returned
from Rome, (which there is no reason to suppose he
would do in the summer of Tiberius’ thirteenth; nor
consequently, before the spring quarter of his four-
teenth,) it does not follow that he would complete his
marriage with her immediately. Josephus himself im-
plies that there was some delay, longer or shorter, be-
ἃ Cf. De Bello, vii. vi. 1—3. 6 Markvi.20. f Ant. xvii. xiii, 1. aviii. v. 4.
& Mark vi. 19. ἐνεῖχεν atrg@—that is, what would otherwise be expressed by ἐμ-
φῦναί τινι. lian, De Natura Animalium, 6 δὲ ὡς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐνέφυ, εἴχετο, lib.
ὙΠ, 1: and again, ἁλλόμενον δὲ παραχρῆμα ἐνέφυ, ibid. 13. Theocritus,
al al, ἔρως ἀνιαρὲ, τί μευ μέλαν ἐκ xpods αἷμα
ἐμφὺς ὡς λιμνᾶτις ἅπαν ἐκ βδέλλα πέπωκας : Idyll. ii. 55.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 425
tween the return and the marriage; of which the
daughter of Aretas took advantage to make her escape
—and in the course of which, Machzrus might pre-
viously pass into the hands of her father.
The time of the death of the Baptist, as it has
been seen heretofore, is agreeable to these suppo-
sitions: for we have had reason to conclude that
it fell out soon after the middle of U.C. 781, the
beginning of Tiberius’ fifteenth year’. It will fol-
low only, that the birthday, which Herod was cele-
brating at that time, happened in the autumnal quar-
ter of the year, and after, or at least not before the
Jewish feast of Tabernacles; which fell that year on
September 22 or 23. And it was about this time of
_ the year, that he had been originally confirmed in his
_ tetrarchy by Augustus; and on the demise of Au-
gustus, by his personal friend and patron, Tiberius. It
_was the practice of his father to keep the day of his
inauguration as an annual festival; and a similar cus-
tom was very generally prevalent in the East*. The
day of a king’s accession was both considered and cele-
brated as his birthday: and in the Mishna it is actu-
ally called so’. The magnificence of Herod’s enter-
tainment, as described by St. Mark*, naturally sug-
gests the inference that he was commemorating some-
thing more than his birthday*.
The chronological arrangement of these events may
therefore very probably be stated as follows:
In the spring quarter of the thirteenth of Tiberius,
τ᾽. C. 780, Herod fell in love with Herodias, and im-
prisoned John; and afterwards proceeded to Rome.
* In the Paschal Chronicon, placed on the 29th of Lous, or
1. 407.1]. 18. the death of Johnis August.
& Vide Dissertation xxiii. vol. ii. 3.41. h Gen. xl.20. Dan.v.1. Esther i.
3. 5. Herodotus, Calliope, 150. i iv. 364. 3. kK vi. 2.
426 Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
In the spring quarter of the fourteenth, U.C. 781,
he returned from Rome; and about the feast of
Tabernacles in that year he put John to death.
Soon after this, Machzerus passed into the possession
of Aretas; the daughter of Aretas made her escape
thither; and Herod was married to Herodias: all be-
fore the beginning of U.C. 782. the middle of the
fifteenth of Tiberias.
In the spring quarter of U.C. 782, Agrippa might
arrive at Malatha, from Rome; and about the middle
of the same year, Tiberii xv. exeunte, he might be
made ’Aryopavouos of Tiberias.
In the course of the next year I should place his
rupture with Herod; the scene of which according to
Josephus was Tyre!. I can imagine no time, about
this period, when Herod could be in Tyre, unless after
the passover U.C.'783. Tib. xvi. medio; when the
Gospel narrative shews that he was in Jerusalem. It
is probable he went down to Tyre from thence. If so,
Agrippa would take refuge with Flaccus, U. C. 783.
eneunte. In the court of Flaccus he seems to have
continued at least a year: that is to say, until U.C.
784, the middle of Tiberius’ seventeenth. One thing is
certain from his own letter to Caius, as reported by
Philo™, that ke was not in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, when Pilate was dedicating the shields—an
event which we have seen reason to place after the
seventeenth of Tiberius"—but his brother Arit obulus
might be; and as Aristobulus was left in the court of
Flaccus, and as Flaccus died about the end of Tiberius’
nineteenth, this is a possible case.
If he set sail to Rome in the summer of U. C. 784.
1 Ant. xviii. vi. 2. ™ Operum ii. 589. 1. 41. et sqq: De Virtutibus. ἢ Dis-
sertation xiii. vol. 1. 449, 450.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 427
he would find Tiberius at Caprez, and Piso prefect of
the city ; as Josephus supposes him to have found.
There is consequently no necessity, as some com-
mentators have imagined, to assume that Josephus has
made a mistake with respect to the place either of the
imprisonment, or of the death of John. 1 admit that
his account of these events is sufficiently obscure ; and
in particular, that he has assigned no good reason for
the death, nor even for the imprisonment in question :
which I have little doubt was done on purpose. But
I see no ground to suspect the accuracy of his state-
ments or the integrity of his text in this one respect :
and as to the tradition that the body of John was
buried in Sebaste*, if it implies that he was confined
or executed ¢here—and indeed with regard to the fact
itself—it is entitled to little consideration.
* Cf. Hieronymus, Operum
ΠῚ. 1241. ad medium, In Osee,
i: 1455. ad principium, In Ab-
diam, i: Theophylact, i. 73. D.
In Matt. xiv. Theodorit, E. H.
iii, vii. 130. A. speaks of the
tomb of John in Sebaste as
having been broken into and de-
stroyed in the time of Julian.
Philostorgius, according to Pho-
tius’ epitome of his Ecclesiasti-
cal History, vii. 4. 503. simply
recorded that the body of John
Baptist was interred in Pa-
lestine, though we may presume
he meant to imply it was buried
in Samaria ; because he too pro-
ceeds to relate how his bones
and those of the prophet Elisha, —
who was buried there, were ex-
humed by the Gentiles in the
reign of Julian, and being min-
gled with the bones of brute
animals, were burnt, and their
ashes scattered in the air.
The head of the Baptist (which
we must of course assume to
have been disposed of apart
from his body) some monks of
Cilicia (though originally of Je-
rusalem) pretended to have dis-
covered in the reign of Valens:
and after having been deposited
for a time at Pantichium, near
Chalcedon, it was brought thence
to Constantinople, in the reign of
Theodosius, about A. D. 392:
Sozomen, Εἰ. H. vii. xxi. 737.
B—738. B: xxiv. 741. D.
Prosper in Chronico dates this
translation, Coss. Valentiniano
iv. et Neoterio, A. D. 390. The
degree of credit due to this pre-
tended discovery may be esti-
mated from the fact, that accord-
ing to Marcellinus Comes, an-
other head of the Baptist was
found at Emesa, in the reign of
the emperor Marcian, A. D. 453.
Cf. Theophylact, loco supra lau-
dato.
428 Appendix. Dissertation Tenth.
I have said nothing here of the difficulty which at-
taches to the name of Herodias’ first husband ; for that
is a difficulty which however great does not concern
the present question. There can be no reasonable
doubt that this husband, both in Josephus and in the
Gospels, is the same person; and whether he was
called Herod, or Philip; or whether he was called by
both names; is indifferent to the truth of the facts
which we have been considering. For the discussion
of these points, then, I refer my reader to Lardner":
observing only that, after all, the word Philip in the
Gospel text is very probably\an interpolation. Gries-
bach considers this unquestionable in the case of
Luke iii. 19; and shews it to be not improbable of
Matt. xiv. 3: in which case no one perhaps will hesi-
tate to pronounce the same judgment on Mark vi. 17.
I shall conclude, therefore, with one more remark.
Herod the tetrarch first heard of the fame of Jesus
after the death of John, and the mission of the
Twelve ; towards the end of our Lord’s second year,
Now during all his first year he would be absent at
Rome; and consequently could not hear of him in
that : and during the first half of his second before he
put John to death, he might not yet be returned from
Rome; or he might be in Persea, the most distant
part of his dominions, where Macherus (in which
John was imprisoned) was situated ; and into which
our Saviour’s ministry had not yet passed. it is not
very probable indeed that Herod’s birthday was cele-
brated in Machzrus: but wherever John was until
then, it is probable Herod also would be. Else how
could he have heard him, and observed him, and done
many things at his bidding® Ὁ To celebrate his birth-
day he might repair to Tiberias; or to Sepphoris; or
. Credibility, book ii. chap. v. ° Mark vi. 20.
Time of the Marriage of Herod and Herodias. 429
some other of his principal cities: leaving John in
Macherus. I do not think, then, that he could have
heard of our Saviour sooner than the Gospel narrative
represents him to have heard: which we may justly
consider a strong confirmation of the whole of our
preceding reasonings.
APPENDIX.
᾿
DISSERTATION ΧΙ.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover.
Vide Dissertation xii. vol. i. page 412. line 16.
le the reader is disposed to allow me the conclusion,
the probability of which I endeavoured in the proper
place to establish by a number of coincidences; viz.
that the day of our Saviour’s birth, U.C. 750. B.C.
4, was in all likelihood the tenth of the Jewish Nisan,
the fifth of the Julian April, and the seventh day of
the week; there are yet other coincidences, connected
with this conclusion, which I think it not unimportant
nor irrelevant to my general argument, to mention;
and which, long as I dwelt on this subject, may per-
haps be my apology, if I resume it here again.
It is the opinion of almost all writers upon ancient
chronology, as well as of all commentators on scrip-
ture, that the world was created at one of the equi-
noctial points or seasons of the year: in other words,
that at the beginning of the mundane system, which
is also the beginning of historical time, the earth and
the sun were situated relatively to each other, as they
are situated twice every year—once in the spring, at
the commencement of the vernal quarter; and again
in the autumn, at the commencement of the autumnal.
Arguing upon this supposition, and considering the
time of our Saviour’s birth as the era of a kind of new
creation, analogous in a spiritual sense to the old or
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 431
original one in'a physical; many divines and learned
men have considered it, ὦ priori, a natural and pro-
bable presumption that the time of his nativity coin-
cided either with the spring or the autumn ; nor in fact
has there been in general any other opinion about it.
The whole course of our reasonings was in favour of
the vernal, and not of the autumnal quarter of. the
year; for which conclusion there is this further argu-
ment also; viz. that if the nativity of Christ, as the
era of a new system of things analogous in any sense
to the old, must coincide with the time of the year at
which that began, it is much the most probable sup-
position in itself, and much the most consistent with
the Mosaic narrative, that the era of the physical
creation begins and proceeds from the spring; than
that it does so from the autumn.
At the time of the birth of Christ, in whatever year
Wwe may suppose it to have fallen out, the vernal equi-
nox, as it is called, may be said in popular language to
have coincided with March 24: and March 24, as far
as we have hitherto discovered, is distinguished by no
preeminence in the course of our Saviour’s history:
but instead of March 24, a day twelve days later,
April 5. If then April 5, B.C. 4, was the true date
of the nativity, either the opinion that our Lord
was born at the vernal equinox, must be given up;
and with it all regard to the analogy above mentioned ;
or April 5,in some sense or other, must still have been
the day of the vernal equinox; or such a day as even
then might justly be considered analogous to the day of
the vernal equinox.
In consequence of the difference between the length
of the solar or tropical, and that of the civil or Julian
year, which difference amounts to eleven minutes and
three seconds of time annually ; the vernal equinox is
432 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
liable to a constant precession ; which, in the course
of one hundred and thirty years, amounts as nearly as
possible to four and twenty hours ; or an entire day
and night *. Hence if March 24. was the date of this
equinox at the time of our Saviour’s birth ; not March
24. but some day considerably earlier than March 24.
must have been the date of this equinox, some hun-
dreds of years before. April 5. then might have been
that day once; and it is easy to determine the exact
time when.
By referring to the table of vernal equinoxes in Dr.
Hales’ Analysis of Chronology ἃ, it will be seen that
B.C. 4. stands almost exactly as the intermediate point
of time, sixty-five years after the date of the vernal
equinox had begun to be March 24. and sixty-five years
before it began to be March 23. From this point of
time let us reckon back twelve periods of one hundred
and thirty years each ; answerable to the rate of pre-
cession through twelve entire days and nights : and the
beginning of the first of those periods will coincide with
the time when the vernal equinox fell between April 5.
and April 4; sixty-five years after it had begun to
fall on the former, and sixty-five years before it began
* This precession of the ver-
nal equinox is not to be con-
founded with the precession of
the equinoctial points of the
earth’s orbit. The former is
owing to the difference in length
between a year, which is sup-
posed to consist of three hun-
dred and sixty-five days and six
hours exactly, and one, which
consists of eleven minutes and
three seconds less than that ;
the latter to an actual retro-
grade movement of the plane of
the ecliptic, and therefore of its
intersection with the plane of
the equator ; by which the longi-
tude of the fixed stars, and the
place of the sun, in the signs of
the zodiac, at the ingress into
the vernal or any other quarter
of the year, in one year com-
pared with another, are both
necessarily affected—but the
length of the tropical year, and
consequently the difference be-
tween that and the length of
the civil, is not affected.
@ Vol. i. 157.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 433
to fall on the latter. The year before Christ, to which
this time corresponds, may be thus determined.
The rate of precession, which I assume to amount
in every year to eleven minutes and three seconds, accu-
mulates in one hundred and thirty years, not to twenty-
four hours exactly, but to twenty-three hours, fifty-six _
minutes, and thirty seconds; which is three minutes
and one half in defect. In the course of twelve times
130, or 1560 years, this defect will amount to forty-
two minutes in all; and these forty-two minutes, at
the rate of eleven minutes to every year, are as nearly
as possible equivalent to four years of precession. It
follows, then, that in twelve periods of one hundred
and thirty years, the rate of precession will amount to
twelve days and nights, minus forty-two minutes; or
what is the same thing, to 1560 minus four years; that
is, to 1556 years in all. Add these to B.C. 4: and the
result, B. C. 1560, will as precisely express the exact
point of time when the vernal equinox fell between
April 5 and April 4, as B.C. 4 does that, when after
twelve revolutions of one hundred and thirty years
each, it fell between March 24 and March 23.
To what purpose however is this conclusion? If it
can be proved that B.C. 1560, when this was the case,
was the true year of the Exodus, and therefore of the
first institution of the passover; I think every one will
allow it to be something significant. Our Saviour might
be born, in the fulness of time, on the day which the
connection of the final end of his birth with the ori-
ginal appointment of the passover had fixed long
before ; and consequently not on March 24, the date
of the vernal equinox B.C. 4, but on April 5, the
date of the same time B.C. 1560; if that year was
the year of the Exodus from Egypt. _
That B.C. 1560. was the year of the Exodus may
VOL. III. 7 rf
43,4, Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
be shewn, as it appears to me, both ὦ priovt and a
posteriori, with a strength and cogency of proof which,
under the circumstances of the case, are much more
than we might have expected; and which, as we may
almost undertake to pronounce, will apply to no year
whatever except that—a priori, by demonstrating
its agreement with the course and succession of events
from the creation to the time of the departure from
EKgypt—and a posteriori, by shewing its agreement
with the course and succession of events from that
time to the birth of Christ.
When entering however upon the statement of this
proof, it is not to be expected that we should descend
into all the minutize of detail, or all the prolixity of
discussion, which a survey of the chronology of the
world for a period of four thousand years or more
would appear at first sight to require. To do this
would take up a volume by itself. It will be sufficient
for the present purpose if we ascertain only the prin-
cipal dates; that is, if we fix the eras of cardinal
successive events, by which, and within which, all
minor and subordinate particulars, if it were necessary,
might be calculated or distributed: and that as con-
cisely as possible.
But before we begin, it is requisite to premise that
the only foundation for our calculations, which I pro-
pose to acknowledge, is the Hebrew text; in comparison
of which I cannot admit the superior claims either of
the Septuagint or of Josephus. I am persuaded, that for
the early history of the world, from the creation down-
wards, there is no sure nor authentic source of infor-
mation but this; and that when we forsake it for any
other guide, we are liable to involve ourselves in per-
plexity and error. I do not think any good argument
can be alleged that the world is of greater antiquity, as
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 485
referred to the Christian era, than the Hebrew compu-
tation of time makes it to be; yet between that, and the
computation, which has been admitted by many of the
learned in preference to it, there is more than a thou-
sand years’ difference; and on some principles more
than fifteen hundred. On this question, however, our
present limits necessarily preclude us from entering.
Suffice it to say, that in the review of the Antedi-
luvian or the Postdiluvian chronology, which I am
about to exhibit; I shall take the Hebrew verity as
my guide, and, except where there is good and im-
plicit reason so to do, I shall not venture to depart
from it.
It is a singular circumstance that, for the first three
centuries after the Christian era, almost unanimously ;
and for many centuries at intervals, even lower down,
with a great inclination in favour of the same opin-
ion; it was the tradition of the fathers of the church,
that the six days employed on the creation were typi-
cal of as many thousand years of the world’s future
existence; and that the seventh day or sabbath, which
ensued at the end of the work of creation, was typical
of a seventh and final millennium, to ensue at the end
of all. Into the origin of this tradition we need not
inquire; but its existence almost coeval with Chris-
tianity itself, and for a long time afterwards, may be
asserted as a fact, which no one who is conversant
with the writings of the most ancient of the fathers
will think of denying.
The prophecy which some of the same authorities
ascribe at one time to Enoch, at another to Elias: Sex
millia annorum mundi: duomilliaInane; duo millia Lex;
duo millia Christus: Six thousand years of the world;
two thousand to the Void; two thousand to the Law;
two thousand to the Christ : is a clear proof how they
FfQ
436 : Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
considered these millennia to be divided. Now it is a
singular coincidence that, according to the Bible chrono-
logy, which certainly was not constructed expressly
to produce it; the birth of Christ, if placed B. Ὁ. 4, is
stated exactly at the close of the fourth millennium:
for if A. M. 1, the year of the creation, answers to
B.C. 4004. A.M. 4001, at the close of the fourth mil-
lennium, answers to B.C. 4, the assumed date of the
birth of Christ. The coincidence would be still more
critical if Christ was born, as the world was created,
in the spring; for then it would be difficult to say
whether he was born at the end of the fourth, or at
the beginning of the fifth millennium, each of which
coincides alike with B.C. 4; were it not that we have
rendered it probable that he was born between the
two.
This division of the millennia of the world is close-
ly connected with the doctrine of the Σαββατισμὸς",
or millenary reign of Christ on earth; upon which,
however, I cannot pause now to enter, further than to
say, that in my opinion it is too clearly recognised in
scripture, and in a variety of ways direct and indi-
rect, to be lightly disbelieved or called in question. I
will observe only, that the division itself is strongly
implied in the use of those expressions, τέλη τῶν αἰώνων
-- συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος----αἰὧν, or αἰῶνες, joined with a
verb, participle, or pronoun describing either the past,
the present, or the future. It is, in general, an in-
accurate version to render these expressions by the
ends, or end, of the world, or worlds ; for as zvum,
or zvom, (saculum,) in Latin would be denoted by
aiov in Greek ; (whence, though the term is obsolete in
that language, it must have been originally derived 5)
and both would imply a period of not less than one
b Hebrews iv. 9.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 437
hundred years; so is αἰὼν, in the latter particularly, a
collection of such periods—a certain number of great
periods making up a still g7eater conjointly. In most
instances, then, and especially when coupled with the
substantives τέλη or συντέλεια, with the participles of
time, or with other words expressive of the past, the
present, or the future; it should be rendered accordingly
by periods of ages, ox the like; and it will always de-
note the appointed term or duration of time, measured
by centuries, for which one ceconomy should last, or had
lasted, before it should be succeeded, or had been suc-
ceeded by another. On this principle, it has always
appeared to me that, under the name of the αἰῶνες past,
the inspired writers of the New Testament frequently
meant to describe the period from the creation to the be-
ginning of the Christian dispensation; and under the
name of the αἰὼν present or to come, that they intended
the duration of that dispensation itself: and at the
close of that, by whatever else it may be succeeded,
first and properly the duration of the sabbatic millen-
nium, or the millenary reign of Christ on earth. Vide
Matt. xili. 39. 40. 49. xxiv. 3. xxvili. 20. Mark x. 30.
Luke xviii. 30. xx. 35.
Now if Christ, from the call of Abraham to the con-
clusion of the prior dispensation by his advent in the
flesh, was in all things the final end contemplated by
it; and if the Christian was throughout the antitype
of the Mosaic ceconomy; it is reasonable to con-
clude that, as they agree and correspond together in
so many other respects, so they should be found to
agree and correspond in their beginnings and their
duration also: and if the first call of Abraham took
place A. M. 2001, as the birth of Christ took place
A. M. 4001, this will actually be the case between
them.
Ff3
438 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
I date the call of Abraham not from his call into Ca-
naan, which was a second call, but from his call into
Haran or Charran, which was the first; the former
after the death of Terah, the latter before ἢ ἃ, Be-
tween these two calls there was a certain interval of
time which scripture has left indefinite ; and in this
indefiniteness consists the whole of the difficulty with
which, in the present part of our subject, we have to
contend. For, from the time of the departure out of
Charran, to the time of the Exodus, every thing is
clear; as the following statements will prove.
I. From this departure to the birth of Isaac there
were ὁ twenty-five years.
II. From the birth of Isaac to the birth of Jacob
there were ὃ sixty years.
III. From the birth of Jacob to the descent into
Egypt there were‘ one hundred and thirty years.
IV. From the descent into Egypt to the Exodus
there were two hundred and fifteen years.
It thus appears that, from the time of the call of
Abraham into Canaan to the time of the Exodus, there
were just four hundred and thirty years; which period
of time was so critically divided between these two
extreme points, that the first two hundred and fifteen
years of it were spent in Canaan, and the next in
Egypt. Nor would it be difficult, by the help of the
data referred to in the margin 5, to shew how this re-
sidence in Egypt might have been filled up, between the
descent, and the birth of Moses; and between that, and
the Exodus. But for the sake of brevity we need not
now do this. We may proceed merely to observe, that if
ς Acts vii. 2, 3, 4. Josh. xxiv. 2, 3. Gen. xi. 31, 32. xii. 1. d Gen. xii.
4) Xi Be © xxv. 26. f xlvii. 9. & Exod. xii. 4o. Gen. xv. 13.
Acts vii. 6. Gal. iii. 17. h Gen. xli. 46—54. xlv. 6. xlvi. 11. 1. 22. 26.
Exod. vi. 16. 18. 20. vii. 7. Acts vii. 23.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 439
the Exodus, as we assumed, took place B.C. 1560.
A.M. 2445, the call of Abraham into Canaan, just
four hundred and thirty years before, took place B.C.
1990. A.M. 2015. Let us suppose that before this
he had been fourteen years resident in Charran *. His
original call out of Chaldza must have taken place
B.C. 2004. A. M. 2001: a very exact coincidence.
The interval, between the creation and the first call
of Abraham to Charran, comes now to be considered.
If we are right in our principles, it must have been one
of two thousand years.
From the birth of Seth, when Adam was one hun-
dred and thirty years old/, to the age of Noah at the
birth of Shem, (which it is asserted was five hundred
years,) and from thence to the flood, the specified in-
tervals amount to 1656 years *: and from the time of
the flood to the birth of Terah the father of Abraham,
the specified intervals amount to 222" If the flood
then befell A. M. 1657. the birth of Terah happened
A.M. 1879.
* The interval in question is
recognised virtually by Origen,
in the following passage, Ope-
rum ii. 31. A. Selecta In Ge-
nesim : ὥσπερ kal ἐπὶ τοῦ ᾿Αβραὰμ
οὐκ ἐλογίσθη εἰς ζωὴν τὰ ἑξήκοντα
ἔτη τὰ πρὸ τῆς θεογνώσεως αὐτοῦ,
«,7.A. If Abraham was sixty
when God first revealed himself
to him, and seventy-five when
he was commanded to leave Ha-
ran, after his father’s death, and
to go into Canaan ; his call from
Ur of Chaldea into Haran was
fifteen years prior to his final
departure thence into Canaan.
And so in fact it is stated in the
Chronicon of Julius Pollux,
Ρ. 84, a work which we have
had occasion to quote hereto-
forei. A similar statement oc-
curs in Syncellus also, i. 185.
g—17. It seems to have been
contained likewise in the apocry-
phal Book of Tharah: see the
Codex Pseudepigraphus,i.3 36—
341. ev. Cf. also, the extract
from Gregorius Abulpharajius,
Ibid. 422.
i This Chronicon, in its present state, terminates with the reign of Va-
lens, A. D. 378. But there is internal evidence at page 324. that the author of
it lived later than the date of the council of Chalcedon at least, in the first
of Marcian, A. D. 451. j Gen. v. 3. k Gen. v. 32. xi. 10. ix. 28, 29.
1 xi. τὸν
Ff 4
440 Appendia. Dissertation Eleventh.
At seventy years old it is said that he had begotten
Abram, Nahor, and Haran™; where, though Haran
is mentioned last, I think it is morally certain that he
was the eldest son of Terah; first because he died be-
fore his father; secondly because he was married :be-
fore his death, and the father of three children, Lot,
Milcah, and Iscah or Sarah; the last of whom was but
ten years younger than Abraham himself®. In like
manner I think it most probable that Abram was his
second son, and Nahor his youngest; for Sarah the
wife of Abraham was peaeply older than Milcah the
wife of Nahor.
And hence we may best understand the assertion,
that Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran, when he
had lived seventy years. ‘They were all begotten be-
Jore he was seventy; and perhaps the youngest of
them, Nahor, when he was seventy 5 ; but none of them
after. The age of the pedogonia, just before the birth
of T’erah, was as early as twenty-nine; and in no case
since the flood had it exceeded thirty-five: so that it
cannot be credible that Terah should have lived twice
this last term of years before he had begotten his eldest
son. This eldest son himself died at an age when he
was old enough to have a daughter, who was sixty-four
years old at the death of Terah, when Abraham was
seventy-four. The note of time, then, used absolutely to
mark the age of Terah at the birth of his ¢hree sons,
which cannot without a palpable absurdity be understood
of his age at the birth of them all, nor without almost
the same of his age at the birth of his eldest; must be
understood of his age at the birth of his youngest ; in
which sense only the assertion would strictly be true.
And hence, also, we may justly infer that the state-
ment of the whole age of Terah 9, as it stands in the
m Gen. xi. 26. n xi. 27, 28, 29. xvil. 17. ο xi. 32.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 441
Hebrew text at present, cannot possibly be correct;
and requires to be amended. For though Abram him-
self had been Terah’s youngest son, and born when
Terah was seventy, the age of Terah at his death
could not be computed as greater than seventy in addi-
tion to the age of Abraham at the time when Terah
died. Now Terah was dead. when Abraham was
called into Canaan; and Abraham was seventy-five
years old when he was called into Canaan?: the age
of Terah then before this migration and at his death,
could*not possibly have been more than one hundred
and forty-five; at which also it is represented in the
Samaritan Pentateuch. 3
But the true length of the life of Terah, as it ap-
pears to me, was neither two hundred and five, nor
one hundred and forty-five; but one hundred and
thirty-five. It is not said of him how long he lived
after he begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; his age
must have been stated absolutely ; viz. that he lived so
many years and died: and hence the origin of the mis-
take. Moses might simply have written, The days of
Terah were one hundred and thirty-five years; which
some scribe considering to be distinct from the time
before specified, that he lived seventy years and begat
Abram, Nahor, and Haran; added the one to the other,
as making up the sum total of his life. And this con-
jecture is greatly confirmed by the result. For 70+
135 =205. The Samaritan Pentateuch, in like man-
ner, taking Abraham to have been born when Terah
was seventy, added this to the number specified, Gen.
xii. 4, of seventy-five; and so made the age of Terah
to be one hundred and forty-five. It is not likely that
Terah would enjoy a longer life than Abraham him-
self, who died at one hundred and seventy-five; or
P Gen. xi. 28. 31. Acts vii. 4. Gen. xii. 4.
442 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
than Isaae or Jacob, who died the former at one hun-
dred and eighty, and the latter at one hundred and
forty-seven 4 *.
I conclude, then, that the age of Terah at his death
was one hundred and thirty-five; whence, if he was
born A. M. 1879, he died A. M. 2014. On this princi-
ple, Abraham, who was called into Canaan A. M. 2015,
was called thither in the year after his father’s death ;
as St. Stephen’s words alone’ would almost suffice to
imply. It is no unreasonable supposition that before
this Terah might have been fourteen years resident in
Charran; and consequently that the original call from
Mesopotamia thither, in which he was concerned as
well as Abraham, took place A. M. 2001. Still less un-
reasonable is it to suppose that this migration took
place very soon after the death of Haran. The very
name given to Haran, where they settled at first, would
seem to imply that’; and if Haran had been born
when Terah was thirty or thirty-five, and had lived
to be only seventy years old or not much more, he
would not die before Terah was one hundred or one
hundred and five at least ; and if 42 also had been mar-
ried at thirty, he might Jeave behind him children, the
oldest of whom might then be forty; and Sarah in par-
ticular (who was sixty-four when Terah was one hun-
dred and thirty-five years old, and therefore was born
when Terah was seventy-one) would be about thirty
years old; and consequently of a marriageable age.
On this point however there is no need to descend into
minutie. :
The agreement of the assumed date of the Exodus,
* In the Septuagint, Gen. xi. were 205 years:” which is a ma-
32. it stands: “ And all the days nifest interpolation.
of Terah in the land of Haran
q Gen."xxv. 7. xxxv. 28. xlvii. 28. r Acts vii. 4. 5. Gen. xi. 31.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first pussover. 443
B.C. 1560, with the history of things previous to that
event having been thus established; its accordance
with the detail of particulars subsequent to it is next
to be shewn. And this I shall endeavour to effect as
low down as the time of the building of the temple;
after which it will not be necessary for us to proceed
any further at present; insomuch as the date, which we
shall be found to assign to the time of this building,
will very nearly coincide with the date assigned to it
also by the Bible chronology.
I. If the Exodus from Egypt took place exactly B.C.
1560. A. M. 2445, the Eisodus into the land of Canaan,
forty years complete afterwards, took place B.C. 1520,
A. M. 2425; at the same time of the year in either
case ¢,
II. After the Eisodus, B.C. 1520, and five or six
years of incessant warfare; the seventh, B.C. 1514,
was the time when the settlement of the country was
completed by the division of the conquered lands: as it
may thus be proved.
Caleb was forty years old in the second year after
the Exodus, B.C. 1559, at the time of the mission of
the spies; and eighty-five years old at the time of the
division of the lands, when Joshua assigned him Kir-
jath-arba. His language implies that at each of these
times he was of such and such an age complete"; and
the former of the two was the close of the summer of
the year’; therefore so was the latter. Hence if Caleb
was forty complete at the close of the summer, B.C.
1559, he was eighty-five complete at the same time of
the year, B.C.1514. It follows, then, that with the
summer * of B.C. 1514. in the seventh year after the
* Josephus, also, Ant. Jud.v. of the lands in the seventh
1, 21, 22: places the division month.
_t Numb. xiv. 33, 34. Deut. i. 3. ii. 14. u Josh. xiv. 7. 10. v Numb,
Xl. 20—25.
444 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
Kisodus, the division of the lands was either just com- _
plete or nearly so”. Whence from this time forward,
but not before it, the land would have rest from war * ;
and the peaceful occupation of the country would
begin. |
The first cycle of sabbatic years, therefore, which
began and expired with the autumn, would begin with
the autumn of B.C. 1513; and the first sabbatic year
itself would begin with the autumn 8.C. 1507, and
expire with the autumn B.C. 1506: the truth of which
inference may further be confirmed as follows.
It has been proved heretofore’, by data entirely in-
dependent of this assumption, that A. D. 27-28, in the
first and second years of our Saviour’s ministry, was a
‘sabbatic year. To B.C. 1507-1506. add A. ἢ). 27-28:
the result is in each case 15343; a number, divisible
by seven, with a remainder of one. If the first of the
number then was a sabbatic year, so was the last—and
if the last, so was the first. Nor is it without an ob-
servable propriety that, as the cycle of sabbatic years
began and could begin only with the time when the
land rested from war, or the people were first securely
settled in their inheritances; so the time of this rest
coincided with the seventh year after the Eisodus, and
six years of incessant war. This seventh year itself
would so far be tantamount to a sabbatic year; and it
would make no difference whether we dated the first
such year from B. C. 1514—B. Οὐ. 1513, or from B.C.
1507—B. C. 1506. Add 27-28. to the former, and the
result, 1541, is divisible by seven with a remainder of
one, as much as before.
In like manner the cycle of Jubiles, which were
required to be celebrated every fiftieth year, and the
w Vide also Josh. xi. 23. xiv. 1. xxi. 43-45. X xiv. 15. Xi. 23. y Dis-
sertation xxii. vol. ii. 232-244.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 445
recurrence and celebration of which were entirely in-
dependent of those of sabbatic years’; would begin
and proceed with the year of the Hisodus itself: and
this conclusion also may be confirmed by the following
argument.
It has often been considered probable that the insti-
tution of the year of Jubile had a secret reference to
the spiritual benefits, which should arise from the
death and passion of our Saviour Christ. If so, the
true year of Jubile; the year of the spiritual release
analogous preeminently to the legal; was that year,
above all others, which ensued on the death and resur-
rection of our Lord. And though the observance of
the years of Jubile, as part of the ritual of the Law,
might have fallen into disuse at the time of the Chris-
tian era, this should make no difference. The first
year of the publication of the Gospel as such, it might
be expected, would still correspond with a legal year
of Jubile. If that year was A. D. 30, and the cycle
of Jubiles began B.C. 1520, this follows as matter of
course: 1520+ 30=1550; a number in which there
would be thirty-one Jubiles exactly: the first, in the
fiftieth year from the Eisodus, B.C. 1471; the last,
A. D. 30.
III. There is no reason to suppose that Joshua
was not a much older person than Caleb; and he is
spoken of as a very old man directly after the settle-
ment of the country’. Hence, if Caleb was eighty-
five, B.C. 1514, Joshua might be more. Now he died at
the age of one hundred and ten®. Let us suppose that
he survived the division of the lands ten years; and
consequently that he was one hundred years old, B.C.
1514. He was ninety-four years old, B.C. 1520, when
Caleb was seventy-nine: and he would die, B.C. 1504.
y Lev. xxv. I—22. 2 Josh. xiii. 1. a Josh. xxiv. 29.
446 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
A.M. 2501: just 1500 years before the true date of
the birth of Christ.
IV. There is a note of time incidently specified in
Judges >, which proves that, from the settlement of
the people in their possessions, to the end of the sub-
jection to the Ammonites, from which the Israelites
were delivered by Jephthah; there was an interval of
three hundred years either more or less. The actual
periods, beginning at Judges iii. 8, and ending with
this deliverance, x. 8, amount in all to 319 years;
which approaches so near to a current statement, like
this of Jephthah’s, that we may consider it to be the
truth. If so, from the death of Joshua, B. C. 1504, to
the time of the deliverance from the Ammonites, there
were about 319 years; that is, the time of this deliver-
ance was about B.C. 1185, or 1186.
V. From the time of the deliverance from the sub-
jection to the Ammonites, to the end of the forty years’
subjection to the Philistines, the specified intervals
amount to 71 years in 4115 : which added to the former
319 make up 390. Now within this forty years’ sub-
jection to the Philistines is manifestly included the
twenty years’ partial deliverance by Samson‘; and as
it appears to me the forty years’ judging of Eli®. For
it is evident that, at the time of the death of Eli, the
oppression of the people by the Philistines was still
continuing; which oppression there is no reason to
suppose was part of any new term of years; and con-
sequently must have been part of the old‘. If so, the
administration of Eli and the subjection of the people
to the Philistines; being each of them forty years in
extent, and each of them terminated together, or with-
in a very short time of each other; must have begun
b Judges xi. 26. ¢ Judges xii. 7—xiii. 1. d xy. 20. xvi. 31.
€ x Sam. iv. 18. f 1 Sam. iv. 7. 9.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 4.4
together ; including in the latter part of both the twenty
years of partial deliverance by Samson. On this prin-
ciple, the close of the administration of Eli, about 390
years after B.C. 1504, fell about B.C. 1114. or 1115.
VI. After this, we must take into account the length
of the administration of Samuel, who succeeded to Eli;
(and, as it would seem, in one year’s time, subsequent
to his death and the capture of the ark®;) until the
appointment of the first king in the person of Saul:
and after this appointment, the length of the reign of
Saul, until the accession of David: and we shall obtain
the time of the accession of David. We may collect from
Acts xiii. 21, that the length of the reign of Saul must
be stated, in some sense or other, at a period of forty
years: and from 1 Sam. vii. 2, that the length of the
administration of Samuel was not less than twenty
years. We may allow then for both these periods toge-
ther sixty years in all; twenty to the latter and forty to
the former; and the interval between the time of the
death of Joshua and the time of the accession of David
becomes 390 + 60, or 450, years: so that, if the former
was B.C. 1504, the latter was B.C. 1054.
The accuracy of this calculation seems to be con-
firmed by the testimony of St. Paul; who tells the
Jews in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch , that the
period for which they had been governed by judges,
dated from some ἀρχὴ or other; as low down as the
prophet Samuel; (and therefore ending with the close
of his administration, which was that of the last
of the judges;) was ws ἔτεσι τετρακοσίοις καὶ πεντή-
κοντα a general statement, which was evidently not
meant to be understood of 450 years exactly, but of
some minor or major number roundly expressed, not
very far short of that. There are two ἀρχαὶ or dates,
51 Sam. vi. §. 13. 21. vii- 1. 2. h Acts xiii. 20.
448 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
_ to which as the context shews this calculation admits
of being referred; one at verse 18, in the beginning of
the forty years’ probation in the wilderness—the other
at verse 19, in the entrance into Canaan, and the re-
duction of the nations therein. In other words, the
interval of 450 years, for which the people, if subject
to any government, were subject to the government of
judges and not of kings, is referred either to the date
of the Exodus or to that of the Eisodus, as its begin-
ning—and to the time of the appointment of Saul
as its close.
I have little doubt that the first of these is that date
which St. Paul had in view. He was marking out the
course and succession of the changes in the govern-
ment of the Jews from the earliest period to the time
of Christ, with the eras or times of each; first from
the Exodus to the last of the judges—secondly from
the last of the judges to the first of the kings—thirdly
from the first of the kings, unti] the time when, in the
person of the second of the number, the inheritance of
the kingdom, and with it the regal form of government,
became for ever assured to one certain channel, by the
transmission of the sceptre to David, as the father and
type of Christ. Now between the date of the Exodus,
B.C. 1560, and the time of the appointment of Saul,
B.C. 1094, there are 466 years; and between the date
of the Hisodus, B.C. 1520, and the same time there
are 426; either of which might be called in round
numbers about 450: for which too there might be this
additional reason, viz. that the appointment of Oth-
niel, the first judge as such, was about as much later,
as we shall see hereafter, than the beginning of the
smaller of these numbers ; as that was than the begin-
ning of the larger. There is another sense, it is true,
in which the same calculation admits of being under-
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 449
stood, and which would bring it nearer still to the
actual period of 450 years: but I consider it unneces-
sary to enter here upon the statement of it*: and equally
so to shew how the length of the duration of the ad-
ministration of Eli, before his death, admits of being
harmonized with the early history of Samuel, before
his appointment to the office of prophet, and afterwards
of judge.
easily be effected 1.
It is sufficient that this, if requisite, might
VII. From the appointment of Saul, B.C. 1094, to
the accession of David, there was forty years’ interval ;
* The supposition, to which
I allude, is briefly as follows.
From the date of the Ejisodus,
B. C. 1520, to the beginning of
Saul’s sole reign, B. C. 1076,
there were 444 years. From the
same time, to the death of Sa-
muel, about B. C. 1056, were
464. ‘The mean point between
these two periods would be as
nearly as possible, 450.
Τ We may observe, however,
that the substance of the book
of Judges, from chapter xvii. to
the end—which relates to the
destructive war waged upon the
tribe of Benjamin, at a time
when Phinehas was the _ high-
priest i, and consequently early
in the intermediate history—
comes most probably within the
eighty years which ensued on
the deliverance from the sub-
jection to the Moabites*. Ehud,
by whom that deliverance was ef-
fected, was himself a Benjamite ;
which renders it very improbable
that his tribe had yet been near-
ly exterminated. But it is not
said expressly that he judged,
though it is said that he deliver-
i xx. 28. K iii. 30.
1 Numbers xxvi. 2. xxxi. 6.
ed, the people—nor yet how
long he survived the deliver-
ance. From the Ejisodus, B.C.
1520, to the time of this de-
liverance, the specified inter-
val, as we have calculated it
generally, amounts to eighty-
two years; which would place
the beginning of the deliver-
ance about B.C. 1440. At the
time of the Eisodus, it is pro-
bable, Phinehas was a young
man, not much above twenty
years old!; especially if, at the
time of the mission of the spies,
B. C. 1559, Eleazar his father
must himself have been under
the same age at least ™. Before
Christ 1520, then, Phinehas
might not be much more than
twenty; and B. C. 1440, not
much more than one hundred :
whence if, like Joshua, he lived
to be one hundred and ten, and
much more if, like many others
before him, he lived to be one
hundred and twenty or thirty,
he might be ministering in the
priest’s office long after the time
of Ehud.
m xiv. 20.
xxvi. 65. xxxii. 11. Deut. i. 35, 36. 38, 39. ii. 14.
VOL. III.
Gg
450 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
and from the accession of David, to the beginning of
the reign of Solomon, there was the same. The acces-
sion of David then was B.C. 1054, and the accession
of Solomon B.C. 1014. The true length of the reign of
Saul, indeed, as I shewed in the Twelfth Dissertation ®,
vol. i. was thirty-nine years and about six months;
and that of the reign of David forty years and six
months; making up eighty years in all, beginning
B.C. 1094, and ending B.C. 1014, as before. On this
principle, also, the reign of David terminated, and the
reign of Solomon began in the spring.
VIII. In the fourth year of his reign, and in the
second month, (Zif, or Jar,) consequently B.C. 1011,
he began to build the temple®; and in seven years
after, consequently about the same time, B. C. 1004, it
was so far complete as to be said to be built ; though its
integrity in all its parts might not take place until the
seventh month afterwards?. This was, as it appears to
me, when the whole edifice, being then complete, was
dedicated. Still the temple was begun to be built B.C.
1011, and finished, in some sense or other, B. C. 1004,
in the spring of the year in each case: which is so far
an observable coincidence, that it comes in precisely
one thousand years after the call of Abraham, B.C.
2004; and one thousand years before the birth of
Christ, B.C. 4; three thousand years from the crea-
tion, A. M.1; and three thousand years before the
sabbatic millennium, (if any such event is then to take
place,) A. M. 6001. ;
The temple, especially that part of it called κατ᾽
ἐξοχὴν the ναὸς or sanctuary, and constructed after the
pattern of the original Tabernacle, was a lively em-
blem of the body of Christ: and as that was built at a
certain distance of time from the call of Abraham, so
n Page 396. Οἱ Kings vi. 1. P vi. 37, 38. 2 Chron. iii. 2. v. 1. 3.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 451
was this born into the world at the same distance of
time from the building of that: and as after the build-
ing of the temple, at a certain distance of time from
the beginning of all things, the presence of God upon
earth became stationary in one place and within one
sanctuary—called his house—so during the sabbatic
millennium, if the return of Christ personally then
takes place, at the same distance of time from the
building of the temple, will it be again resident and
stationary among men, for a thousand years more, to
the consummation of ali things. The parallel will
hold still closer, if the temple, whose building, dimen-
sions, and purposes are so minutely described by Eze-
kiel 4, is no figurative or mystical structure; but some-
thing which will actually take place.
It is true, the continuity of the temple’s existence,
before the birth of Christ, was interrupted for the pe-
riod of time during which it lay desolate, after its de-
struction by Nebuchadnezzar, and before its restoration
by Zorobabel. But this defect in continuity, on the
one side, is compensated by a corresponding excess, on
the other. From the eleventh of Zedekiah, when the
temple was burnt down, to the sixth of Darius, when
it was again rebuilt, there was an interval of seventy-
three years complete or current, before the birth of
Christ, during which there was no temple: and from
B. C. 4. to A.D. 70, when it was again destroyed,
there was an interval of the same length of time, even
after the nativity, during which there was still a tem-
ple. These are coincidences which cannot be ascribed
to chance; and what renders them so much the more
remarkable is this; viz. that the first temple, as we
have seen, was finished in the spring, B. C. 1004; and
so was the second on the third of Adar’, B. C. 516.
q Ezek. xl—xlviii. r Ezra vi. 15.
Gg2
452 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
The first temple was destroyed on the eighth or the
tenth of the fifth month, B. C. 588, and so was the
second, A. D. 70. Moralizing on these things, Jose-
phus, in the true spirit of a Pharisee, called them fate:
a Christian should rather call them contrivance, and
the ordering of times and seasons by the providential
control of God.
The building of Solomon’s temple is placed by the
Bible Chronology also, B.C. 1012, only one year ear-
lier than the date which we have assigned it; so that
from this time forward it is unnecessary for us to con-
tinue the present inquiry. It is enough to refer, for
the rest of the period between this building and the
birth of Christ, to the authorities which have fixed the
Bible Chronology. For the extreme points within
which most of the succeeding events must be compre-
hended ; the beginning of Solomon’s reign on the one
hand, and the commencement of the seventy years’
captivity on the other; (where we first get upon the
boundaries of sacred and profane chronology, in such
a manner as to secure us from any subsequent material
error ;) I think this Chronology is safely to be trusted :
and we may render this probable by pointing out its
accuracy in one intermediate circumstance; the date
assigned to the time of the deliverance of Jerusalem
from the invasion of Sennacherib, in the reign of He-
zekiah, B.C. 710.
The year of this deliverance was the year before a
sabbatic year; and the year after it was a sabbatic
year. The words of Isaiah‘: Ye shall eat this year
such things as grow of themselves; and in the second
year that which springeth of the same; and in the
third year, sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards
and eat the fruits thereof: admit of no other construc-
8 2 Kings xix. 29. Is. xxxvii. 30.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 453
tion. On this principle, if the deliverance took place
B.C. 710, the year after, B. C. 709—B.C. 708, was
the sabbatic year in question. Add to these numbers,
as in the former instance, A. D. 27-28: the result in
either case, viz. 736, is a number divisible by seven,
with a remainder of one. Hence if A. D. 27-28, was
a sabbatic year, so was B.C. 709-708. ‘The same con-
clusion follows from subtracting B.C. 709-708, the
date of this sabbatic year, from B.C. 1507-1506, the
date of the first as such. The difference 798 is ex-
actly a multiple of seven: whence, if the first of the
number was a sabbatic year, viz. B.C. 1507-1506,
the last, which answers to B.C. 710—709, must have
been the sixth year of the cycle; and the next a sab-
batic year.
Now B.C. 710, the year of the deliverance was the
fourteenth of Hezekiah *; which is to be collected not
merely from 2 Kings xviii. 13. and Isaiah xxxvi. 1.
but also from the fact that he reigned twenty-nine
years in allt; and survived the deliverance fifteen
years". For from the context of all these accounts, it
seems to me indisputably clear that the sickness, from
which also he was miraculously delivered, attacked
him directly after the discomfiture of Sennacherib.
From the beginning of the reign of Solomon to the
fourteenth of Hezekiah, inclusive of each, the specified
lengths of the reigns of the kings of Judah, amount to
three hundred and eight years; and from the fifteenth
of Hezekiah, inclusive, to the fifth of Jehoiakim, exclu-
sive, they amount to one hundred and seven. From
B. C. 1014, the first of Solomon, to B. C. 710, the four-
teenth of Hezekiah, zmclusive, for the first of these in-
* So it is reckoned by Josephus, also, Ant. Jud. x. i. 1.
t 2 Kings xviii. 2. 2 Chron. xxix. 1. Ὁ 15. xxxviii. 1. 5. 2 Kings xx. 1. 6.
2 Chron. xxxii. 24.
Gg 3
454 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
tervals we have three hundred and five years; and
from B.C.709, the fifteenth of Hezekiah, inclusive,
to B. C. 606, the beginning of the seventy years’ cap-
tivity, (which the Bible Chronology makes the fifth of
Jehoiakim,) exclusive, we have for the second, one
hundred and three. Consequently there is a difference
in the one case of three years; and in the other of
four; the former to be allowed for in thirteen reigns ;
and the latter in four or five. Now there is not a
reign from Solomon’s to Josiah’s, (though there were
seventeen reigns in all;) except perhaps Asa’s"; the
length of which is specified'in fractions of years, as
well as in years complete. But it would be absurd te
suppose that seventeen kings all reigned in succession
an even number of months complete. The necessity
therefore of making some allowance for current years,
considered as complete, must be self-evident; and in
the course of three hundred and five years, or even of
one hundred and three, this consideration alone would
abundantly compensate for so trifling a difference as
three or four years either in excess or in defect.
I shall conclude this review, then, with the notice of
one only remaining difficulty. The First of Kings,
vi. 1, places the beginning to build the temple in the
four hundred and eightieth year, after the coming of
the children of Israel out of Egypt: but between B. C.
1560, our assumed date of the Exodus, and B. C.1011,
that of the beginning to build the temple, the interval
is five hundred and forty-nine years; not four hundred
and eighty. Now the Exodus was forty years prior
to the entrance into Canaan; and either from this en-
trance, or at the utmost from the Exodus, even to
the beginning of the reign of Saul, eighty-four years
u 2 Chron. xvi. 13.
On the date of the Hxudus, and of the first passover. 455
before the temple was begun, we had St. Paul’s as-
surance that about four hundred and fifty years must
have elapsed. It is manifest, therefore, that if the text
is not corrupt, the date in question can be referred
neither to the time of the Exodus, nor to the time of
the Eisodus; but must be understood of some begin-
ning even later than both: the nature of which may
probably be thus determined.
Four hundred and eighty years reckoned backward
from B.C.1011, would begin B.C.1491, which would
be just thirteen years from the time of the death of
Joshua, B.C. 1504. If this time was that of the ap-
pointment of Othniel, the first of the judges as such,
it might possibly be made the date for the computation
in the text: and that it might be the time of this ap-
pointment may be proved as follows.
If this year was the date of the appointment of
Othniel, it was also the date of the expiration of the
eight years’ servitude to Chushan-rishathaim’; and if
so, that servitude expired B.C. 1491, and began B.C.
1499, five years after the death of Joshua. Now the
servitude itself did not begin until after both the death
of Joshua, and the death of the elders who outlived
Joshua; by whom, I think, we must understand the
surviving members of the Sanhedrim, originally insti-
tuted by Moses in the wilderness”; and as we may
suppose, kept up still to the period of his death: who,
at the time of the Eisodus, were probably among the
oldest persons, next to Caleb and Joshua, then alive;
and whose death might consequently ensue within five
or six years of that of Joshua, when probably none of
them would be less than eighty years of age. From
the beginning of the servitude to the time of Jephthah
v Judges iii. 8. Ww Numb. xi. 16—30. xvi. 25. Deut. i. g—18.
Gg4
456 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
- there were three hundred and nineteen years; which
he, though dating from the settlement.of the country
called three hundred ; whence we may infer, that these
three hundred years began very near to the date of
that settlement; and that very possibly from the com-
mencement of the first servitude to the time of Jeph-
thah, the exact interval was about three hundred and
fourteen years, not three hundred and nineteen: the
difference of five years between them being the inter-
val between the death of Joshua, and that of the last
of the elders who outlived Joshua—which difference,
in the course of the subsequent computation, may
easily be accounted for as follows.
Nothing is more probable than that, in almost every
instance, the last year of a particular servitude is reck-
oned over again as the first of the deliverance, which
ensued upon it: and it is a singular confirmation of
this conjecture that, as we have jive years of excess in
the specified period of three hundred and _ nineteen
years, considered as equivalent to three hundred and
fourteen, and jive years’ interval between the death of
Joshua and that of the last of the elders, before the
beginning of the first servitude; so between the death
of Joshua and the time of Jephthah, there were exact-
ly five distinct and successive servitudes—to Chushan-
rishathaim—to Eglon—to Jabin—to the Midianites—
to the Ammonites—from which the people were suc-
cessively delivered. If we can reckon, in each of these
instances, the last year of the servitude as the first of
the deliverance, the excess is accounted for at once.
Moreover, the probable age of Othniel at the time
of his death; which every one will allow might be as
great as Joshua’s; makes in favour of the same con-
clusion. It is certain that he must have been under
twenty in the year after the Exodus: and it is very
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 457
probable that he was not yet forty, at the time of the
division of the lands, when he obtained Achsah, the
daughter of Caleb, to wife**. If so, he was not more
than forty, B.C. 1514: nor than fifty, B. C. 1504: nor
than fifty-five, B.C. 1499: nor than sixty-three, B.C.
1491: nor than one hundred and three, B.C. 1451,
about the end of his forty years’ judging: which was
also the close of his life.
With the dissolution of the Sanhedrim appointed by
Moses, the government of the Israelites, as it had been
constituted in the wilderness, would properly expire:
and with the rise of the first judge, a different descrip-
tion of government, more analogous to that of the pro-
phets or of the kings in aftertimes, would properly
begin: and to this beginning, the date in the text, if
there is no reason to suspect its soundness, I think
may be still referred. Otherwise, the same liberty is
open to us, which others have freely taken: and if we
admit the probability of an error, and must refer the
date to the Exodus, we may boldly change it to five
hundred and forty-nine at once. But I prefer the
other solution, which preserves the integrity of the text
inviolate+. And it is a general argument that the in-
* It makes in favour of these
suppositions that Othniel was
the son of Kenaz—who is called,
Judges iii. g, the younger bro-
ther of Caleb.
+ Eusebius, Chronicon Ar-
meno-Latinum, Parsi. 162, 163:
read in the Septuagint, as we
now do, four hundred and forty,
and in the Hebrew, four hundred
and eighty, for the date in ques-
tion. It appears also that the
Jewish rabbis recognised the lat-
ter number ; dating it from the
Exodus, and attempting to make
it out by not reckoning the
years of servitude, in particular
instances, as distinct from, but
as included in, the years of the
judges. Josephus, Ant. Jud.
Vili. ili, 1. has the date 592.
Josephus, Hypomnesticon, v. cv.
218. the date, 560; both re-
ferred to the Exodus. Cf. how-
ever, v. cl. 339. Sulpicius Se-
verus, while he recognises the
date of the ο΄, 440. makes the
interval from the Exodus to the
beginning of the building of the
temple, 588 years: lib. i. 70.
x Joshua xv. 16, 17.
458 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
' terval between the accession of David, and the death
of Joshua, did not exceed four hundred and fifty years,
that from the birth of Abishua the son of Phinehas, to
the birth of Zadok the son of Ahitub, there were nine
generations’; which at this early period cannot be
reckoned at less than forty, or even five and forty
years apiece. On this principle the birth of Abishua
might almost coincide with the time of the death of
Joshua; and the birth of Zadok with the close of
the administration of Eli; if not of Samuel. It is pos-
sible therefore that Ahitub, the father of Zadok, might
have been a child at the beginning of Eli’s administra-
tion; which if true, would be the best reason why
the high priesthood should have passed, for a time,
out of the family of Eleazar or Phinehas, into that of
Ithamar ; and why it should have continued there, un-
til it was restored to its former possessors in the per-
son of Zadok, when Abiathar was deprived of the
office by Solomon. Zadok was not only grown up to
man’s estate, before the reign of David, but the father
of sons also arrived at maturity, whose name and
agency are both alluded to in its course. He is men-
tioned early in the reign of David, at a time when he
could hardly be less than thirty or forty years old;
and possibly might be more ἃ.
We might now be considered to have established
our original position on probable grounds ; which was
the assumption that, both ὦ priort and a posteriori,
no date accords so well to the time of the Exodus
from Egypt, as B.C. 1560. Τὸ revert however to the
subject of the vernal equinox; which we have suppos-
ed to fall in that year, between April 5 and April 4:
y 1 Chron. vi. 4—8. Ezra vii. 2—5. 22 Sam. xv. 36. xvii. 17. xviii. 19.
a 2 Sam. v. 4, 5. viii. 17.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 459
just as B.C. 4, in the year of the nativity, it fell be-
tween March 24 and March 23.
I have met with an ingenious and simple method of
calculating vernal equinoxes; contained in a little book
written by Gamaliel Smethurst, and entitled Tables of
Time, and published at Manchester, before the al-
teration of the style: according to which, B.C. 4. A.M.
4001. Period. Julian. 4710. the sun entered the first
point of the equinoctial sign, and the vernal equinox
consequently began, on March 22; forty-six seconds,
and fifty-four minutes, after nine at night. In other
words, the vernal equinox, at the time of the nativity,
fell not between March 24 and 23; but between March
292 and 21. Answerable to this distinction, B.C. 1560.
Period. Julian. 3154. A.M. 2445. the vernal equinox
must have fallen not between April 5 and 4, but be-
tween April 3 and 2. And, indeed, according to the
method of calculation just referred to, the sun entered
the vernal sign in that year on April 3; thirty-four
seconds, twenty-eight minutes, after eight at night;
that is, the vernal equinox fell on April 3. What then,
it will naturally be demanded, becomes of the ana-
logy between the date of the vernal equinox at the
time of the Exodus, and the assumed date of the na-
tivity, April 5?
In answer to this question, I must remind the reader
that the standard of time, according to which that
date of the nativity was calculated, is the Julian year,
as first settled and regulated by Julius Cesar, U.C.
708. B.C. 46, and bearing date from January 1. U.C.
709. B.C. 45: but the true standard of time is neither
the Julian—nor any other civil or artificial descrip-
tion of year, but the solar or tropical year alone;
which solar or tropical year is measured by the inter-
val taken up in the sun’s completion of its annual re-
460 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
volution through the twelve signs of the zodiac, from
the noment when it enters the first, to the moment
when it comes to it again. We know of no fixed or in-
variable measure of time, but the interval in question.
The lunar year is, strictly speaking, an imperfect mea-
sure of this; that is, it is the accommodation of twelve
or thirteen revolutions about the earth to the duration
of this one revolution about the heavens : and the civil
year, of every name or constitution, is a purely arbi-
trary system; which must still be originally founded
upon this, and must ultimately be in some manner or
other reducible to it.
The Julian year, which since its first institution
has never ceased to be the year in use, (at least in Eu-
rope, and among Christians of the western division of
the Roman empire,) was always intended to be strictly
in accommodation to this natural and invariable stand-
ard: and had the principles, on which it was founded,
been absolutely sure and certain, no contrivance could
have been more admirably suited for its purpose. It
was assumed, in constructing that year, that the length
of the tropical year was exactly 365 days and 6 hours
of mean time; whereas its true length is eleven mi-
nutes and three seconds or more less than that. On
this assumption, the fraction of time in four years ex-
actly amounted to four and twenty hours; and if the
length of the civil year, for every three successive
years, was to be fixed at 365 days, and for every
fourth in order, at 366; it is manifest that, for those
three years in order, there never could be a greater
difference between any day in the civil year, and the
corresponding day in the natural, than eighteen hours;
and that both this and the additional difference of six
hours more, produced by the revolution of another
year, would be exactly compensated by the intercala-
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 461
tion of an extra day and night, at the end of the
fourth year, and before the fifth.
Yet to the application of this assumption in practice,
erroneous as it was in principle, it was previously ne-
cessary that the cardinal points in the natural and tro-
pical year (which points are the winter solstice, the
vernal equinox, the summer solstice, and the autumnal
equinox) should have been accurately determined :
otherwise there could be no proper date or beginning
at which, and from which, both the natural and the
artificial systems of time, which were thenceforward
to be adjusted to each other, would begin and proceed
in common. These points were determined by Sosi-
genes, the most eminent mathematician of his day>;
and being so determined, the winter solstice was made
to coincide in the newly regulated year with Decem-
ber 25; the vernal equinox with March 25; the sum-
mer solstice with June 24; and the autumnal equinox
with September 24. Had these dates all been rightly
determined, it is manifest that the cardinal points of
the tropical year would actually have coincided with
the corresponding points of the civil; and the original
adjustment of the one to the other, which was ne-
cessary to their subsequent agreement, would so far
have been complete.
It has been proved, however, by modern calcula-
tions, that Sosigenes committed an error in the fixing
of his cardinal points: that the real date of the winter
solstice, for instance, in the first Julian year as such,
was December 23, not December 25; the real date of
the vernal equinox was March 22 or 23, not March 25;
and so proportionally in the other cases also. Nor was
this an improbable contingency, or what he must not
have suspected himself: for we are told that he re-
Ὁ Pliny, H. N. xviii. 57. 59. 66. §.1. 67.§.3. 68.§.1. 74.
462 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
peated his calculations ¢hrice, (trinis commentationi-
bus,) and yet was not satisfied with the results after
all. It follows then, that the original adjustment of
the Julian or civil year to the tropical or natural was
not perfect or complete; the former, in its most cardi-
nal points of all, the winter solstice and the vernal
equinox, was two days in advance of the latter; and,
consequently, a given date in the former, even from
its earliest institution, was no exact measure of a cor-
responding date in the latter. April 5, for instance,
in the first Julian year, and much more in any subse-
quent one, did not express, April 5 in the tropical.
April 5 in the Julian was properly Aprii 3 in the
tropical; and April 5 in the tropical was April 7 in
the Julian.
This original error in the Julian year has never
been rectified since; and -exists now as much as at its
first institution. The reformation of the calendar
(which means the readjustment of the Julian year to
its pristine standard) by Gregory the Thirteenth, A.D.
1582, had no object in view except the restoration of
that year to the state in which it was left by the coun-
cil of Nice, A. D.325; and having attained that purpose,
to provide against any deviations from it for the future.
Between A. D. 325, and A. D. 1582, the excess of the
civil above the natural year, at the rate of 130 years
per diem, amounted to nine days complete, and almost
a tenth. Gregory compensated for this excess by order-
ing that the fifth of October should be called the fif-
teenth; and consequently the eleventh of March the
twenty-first: by which means the vernal equinox was
again made to fall on March 21, to which it had been
fixed by the council of Nice. But if there was any
original defect in the civil year, independent of this,
and anterior even to the council of Nice itself; it is
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 463
clear that this defect was not affected by the correction
in question.
_ Now the date of the vernal equinox, March 21, as
fixed by the council of Nice, was almost as much in ad-
vance of the true date of this equinox, A. D. 325, as
the date of the vernal equinox, March 25. B.C. 45, in
the first Julian year as such. It was in fact only a
necessary consequence of the assumed date of that
equinox, March 24, B.C. 4, when the true date was
March 22. For if, B.C. 65, the vernal equinox was
supposed to begin to fall on March 24. then, if we
reckon forwards at the rate of 130 years to a day,
A. Ὁ. 325 exactly, it would begin to fall on March 21;
whereas the true date of its falling even then was
March 20, or 19.
The Gregorian reformation, or what is called the
new style in opposition to the old, came immediately
into vogue in catholic countries; and it is the style
according to which the dates of the eclipses, in the
table so often quoted, are all calculated*. Nor did
this new style, even from the first, differ from the old,
in any thing but the order of the days of the month;
(a given day of the month, old style, being necessarily
ten days behind the corresponding day, new style;)
and also of the days of the week; a given day of the
month, new style, being necessarily on a day of the
week three days earlier than the same day would have
been, old style. It follows, therefore, that even in the
tables above quoted, though the dates of the months
are the Julian, and the Julian as rectified by the Gre-
gorian correction, yet they retain of necessity the ori-
* For example, mention oc- horam, for the meridian of Cam-
curs, Pliny, H. N. ii. 72, of an pania; which the Table shews
eclipse of the sun, U. C. 812. on April 30, for the meridian of
A.D.59. Pridie Calendas Maias, Paris.
inter septimam et octavam diei
Ἢ
464 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
ginal error of the Julian reckoning—which is that of
anticipating by two days the corresponding day of the
month in the tropical year. Hence, in the calculation
of the paschal full moon, U. C. 750. B.C. 4, as ob-
tained from the eclipse on March 13; which eclipse is
determined to that day both in the original calcula-
tions of Kepler and Petavius, and in the subsequent
calculation of Pingré*; the date of that full moon,
April 11, was virtually April 9; the date of the four-
teenth of Nisan, answering to that, was April 8; and
the date of the tenth of Nisan was April 4. The true
date therefore of our Saviour’s nativity, if it was the
tenth of Nisan, U.C.'750. B.C. 4, might be nominally
April 5 or 6; but it would be really April 3 or 4. It
would be April 5 or 6. in the Julian or civil, as ad-
justed to the tropical year: it would be April 3 or 4.
as referred to that year itself. It will follow, therefore,
that the true date of the nativity, B.C. 4, might still
be the true date of the vernal equinox, B.C. 1560.
A question however yet remains. I have assumed
that, in the year of the nativity, the Julian April 5
(which must now be considered as equivalent to the
true April 3) fell upon the seventh day of the week :
and it may justly be considered a desideratum to the
* The same eclipse was cal- sults, as adapted to the meri-
culated for me by the kindness dian of Jerusalem, stand as fol-
of Mr. Henry Jenkyns, of Isle- lows:
worth, Middlesex ; whose re-
Julian period, 4710. U.C. 750. B.C. 4.
Moon eclipsed March 13. visible at Jerusalem.
h. m.
Beginning of the eclipse ..1 49 in the morning.
δε ϑἰφι νυν, Sind MENG ἡ Zit,
Ecliptic opposition ...... 3 10
ion: 44 4 aS 4 14
Digits eclipsed 4 51
On this principle the moon passover would be celebrated
would be at the full again, April April το.
ξεν; 90.40. dual and the
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 465
completeness of our proof, that we should be able to
demonstrate, with such probable certainty as the sub-
ject admits of, that April 3, B. C. 1560, fell on the
seventh day also. And, if we are only at liberty to
conjecture that the year of the Exodus coincided with
B. C. 1560, and the tenth of Nisan in that year with
April 3; this, I think, may be proved.
First, if we compare Numbers xxxiii. 1—8. with
Exodus xii. 37. xiii. 20. xiv. 2. 9. 13. 19. 20, 21. 24.
27. it will be considered certain that, as the people
left Egypt on the fifteenth of Nisan, and journeyed
that day from Rameses to Succoth; so they journeyed
on the next day from Succoth to Etham, and on
the third day * from Etham to Pi-hahiroth; oppo-
site to the quarter where it was designed by Provi-
dence that they should cross the Red sea. More-
over it will appear that, in turning from Etham to
Pi-hahiroth, they deviated from the line of their course
until then ; and in some measure retraced their steps:
which renders it less surprising that the same day,
before the evening, they were overtaken by the host
of the Egyptians. On the same night after they were
overtaken, the sea was made to go back by a strong
east wind; the pillar of fire, which until then had
preceded the course of the Israelites, turned and came
into their rear; before the night was passed they
were commanded to enter the sea; in the morning-
watch God began to trouble the host of the Egyptians ;
and when the morning returned (the people being now
safely landed on the Arabian shore) the sea was
restored to its strength, and the deliverance of the
Israelites was complete. The departure from Rameses
then took place on the morning of the fifteenth of
* Josephus likewise supposes the third day. Ant. Jud. ii.
them to arrive at Pi-hahiroth on xv. 1.
VOL. III. Hh
466 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
Nisan ; and the passage of the Red sea, as it may be
with reason conjectured, on the night of the seven-
teenth, or the evening of the Jewish eighteenth.
Now the passage of the Red sea by the Israelites,
and the overthrow of the Egyptians in its waters,
have been considered by the Church in all ages to be
a striking emblem of Christian baptism, and of the
spiritual conquest which was achieved by Christ in
his resurrection from the dead. It is not inconsistent
with this analogy that, as our Lord rose again on
the first day of the week, so the passage of the Red sea
took place on the same. And if the tenth of Nisan
fell on the Saturday, this must actually have been
the case; for the seventeenth would fall on the Satur-
day also, and therefore the eighteenth upon the Sun-
day. The analogy is, perhaps, even closer than this ;
for as God began to trouble the Egyptians first with
the arrival of the morning watch, and brought back
the sea upon them finally when the morning appeared 3;
so was it between these same limits that our Saviour
arose from the dead; not before the one, and yet not
after the other.
Again, if we refer to Exodus xvi. 1. it will be seen
that, on the fifteenth day of the second month, after
the departure from Egypt, the people arrived in the
wilderness of Sin. On the evening next after this
arrival, they were supplied with the quails; on the
morning after that with the manna; and on the sixth
day, exclusive of this morning, was the first of the
sabbaths as such¢. Nothing, I think, can be more
probable than the inference from these facts, viz.
that the people arrived at Sin on the morning of the
last day of one week; and were first supplied with
ς᾽ Exod. xvi. 6. 8. 12. 13. 22, 23. 27.
ss gh
—,
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 467
manna on the morning of the jirst day of the next.
If so, the fifteenth of the second month was a Satur-
day; and therefore so were the eighth and the first.
Consequently, if the month before this, the month of
the Exodus, contained thirty days, (which would be
certain, if the year of Moses was still solar or Egypt-
ian‘, and not absolutely improbable even though it
was already converted into a lunar one ;) the twenty-
fourth, the seventeenth, the tenth days of that month,
respectively, must all have coincided with the seventh
day of the week. In other words, the lamb for the
first passover was originally set apart, B. C. 1560, in
the year of the Exodus, on the same day of the week,
and on the same day of the month on which Christ,
who was always adumbrated by that victim, was ulti-
mately born, B. C. 4, in the year of the nativity. This
conclusion may be further confirmed as follows.
As I acknowledge no true measure of time but the
revolution of the tropical year; so do I acknowledge
no true division of weeks but the succession of days in
that year; to which, it is manifest, no criterion is ap-
plicable like the solar cycle of twenty-eight years, (a
cycle intended for the Julian year exclusively,) but
only the simple and natural one of the reduction of
years into days and nights, or νυχθήμερα, and of days
and nights, or νυχθήμερα, into weeks. With this view
I will assume for the present that, according to Sir
Isaac Newton’s computation, the mean length of the
solar or tropical year is three hundred and sixty-five
days, five hours; forty-eight minutes, and fifty-seven
seconds.
It has been demonstrated by the celebrated astrono-
mer La Place “, that about B.C. 4004. was the era of
ad Compare in proof of this, Gen. vii. 11. viii. 4. vii. 24. viii. 3.
e Mécanique Céleste, vi.x. 31.
Hh 2
468 Appendix. . Dissertation Eleventh.
a grand astronomical] epoch ; viz. of the time when the
axis major of the earth’s orbit coincided with the line
of the equinoxes ; and consequently when, at the ver-
nal and the autumnal equinoxes respectively, the year
was equally divided, or the summer half of the earth’s
annual revolution was exactly of the same length as
the winter. This equality has not subsisted since: on
the contrary, it has been gradually varying; so that
the former of those periods is now more than a week
longer than the latter. The period in question, then,
from which this inequality begins to proceed, or before
which it cannot be proved to have existed, may justly
be regarded as a grand astronomical epoch; and it
furnishes no slight confirmation to the conclusion,
otherwise obtained, that the same year, B.C. 4004,
was (as the Bible chronology assumes it to be) the first
year of creation, answering to A.M.1. For if the
effect in question might ὦ priori be expected to exist
at any time, in general; it would most reasonably be
expected to exist at the time of the creation, in par-
ticular.
Assuming then, that A.M. 1. and B.C. 4004. both
which correspond to the year of the Julian period, 710,
coincided together, we may calculate, by the help of
the method alluded to above, that the sun entered the
equinoctial sign of the vernal quarter, A. M. 1, upon
April 223 not earlier than twelve, nor later than six
in the afternoon. Now, it is a possible case that, as
the first production of light and its separation from
darkness were so far the beginning of the revolution
of days and nights—and as it is reasonable to conclude
that, at their first separation, the day and the night
were equal—so both this production and this separa-
tion coincided, in the year of creation, with the time
of the vernal equinox. Nor would it be any objection
SE, ὅς ς
Bi το
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 469
that the sun itself was not created until four days after-
wards. The revolution of days and nights had begun
four days before; and it is no anomaly to say that, in
the year of creation, before the sun itself was in being,
the year was four days old. I will assume, then, that
the revolution of days and nights, or rather of νυχθή-
μερα, or days and nights as such, begins from the date
of the vernal equinox, A. M. 1; about six in the even-
ing of April 22. Let us now consider on what day
the third of April, taking its rise from this point of de-
parture, would be likely to fall A. M. 2445, in the year
of the Exodus from Egypt.
days. h. m. 5
2000 tropical years = 7380484 15 40 0
| RE, SRE μὰ ον = 146096 22 2 0
RM ihe Bcc = 14009 16 3 O
Mesatttecte sities, CC. τς 1460 23 15 48
Αμων υρῥι κοῦ. = 892652 5 53 48
These days being reduced to weeks = 127521 weeks,
five days and nights, five hours, fifty-three minutes, and
forty-eight seconds ; which fraction of time (for a rea-
son which will appear by and by) being neglected,
the excess is reduced to five days exactly. Hence, if
A.M. 1, the first νυχθήμερον of the first week began upon
April 22, about sunset ; A. M. 2445, the first νυχθήμερον
of the 127522d week began at the same time upon
April 17: consequently, April 17 was a Saturday;
and therefore April 10 and April 3.
In like manner 4000 tropical years = 1460969 days,
seven hours, twenty minutes; that is, 208709 weeks,
six days and nights, seven hours, and twenty minutes ;.
or as before, six days and nights merely. For Sir
Isaac Newton’s mean length of the tropical year differs
from that of Delambre, which comprises the result of
Hh 3
470 Appendix. Dissertation Kleventh.
‘ the most laborious and accurate of modern observa-
tions, by an excess of about six seconds; which excess,
in the lapse of four thousand years, will amount, as
nearly as possible, to the fraction of time in question.
Hence as before; if A. M. 1, the first νυχθήμερον of
the first week began about sunset on April 22*;
A. M. 4001, in the year of the nativity, the first νυχθήμε-
pov of the 208710th week would begin about the same
time on April 16; that is, April 16 would be Satur-
day, and therefore April 9 and April 2 also.
It is true, we have endeavoured to prove that A. M.
4001, in the year of the nativity, not April 2, but
April 3, was Saturday; from which conclusion what
we have just arrived at differs by a day. When it is
considered, however, that these calculations were
founded on the mean length of the tropical year, which
mean length has not yet been exactly settled, and,
beginning from the time of Sir Isaac Newton, the more
strictly it has since been ascertained, the more it re-
quires to be reduced not increased in its amount;
even this approximation to the truth may appear as
near a coincidence as the nature of the case admits of.
The mean length, whether of the solar or of the lunar
* The rate of precession for
the vernal equinox, which ac-
cording to the standard of New-
ton was eleven minutes three
seconds annually, will be eleven
minutes nine seconds annually
according to that of Delambre.
But this difference will not af-
fect the truth of the calculation
that A. M.1, the date of the
vernal equinox was April 22, if
B.C. 4 it really fell on March
22. In four thousand years the
rate of precession according to
Delambre, at the mean ratio of
eleven minutes nine seconds an-
nually, would accumulate to
forty-four thousand six hundred
minutes ; or seven hundred and
forty-three hours, twenty mi-
nutes ; which are equal to thirty
days and nights, twenty-three
hours, and twenty minutes, or
what we may call thirty-one
days and nights in all. Hence
if the date of the vernal equinox
A. M.1 was April 22 at a cer-
tain time, the date of the vernal
equinox A.M. 4001, B.C. 4,
would be March 22 at the same
time, within forty minutes of
defect only.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 471
motions, is the only fixed standard by which they can
be reduced to calculation at all; and yet the mean
length in the case of motions, which are perpetually
varying more or less, can never at a given time be an
exact measure of the true: nor is it an impossible con-
tingency that, though A.M. 4001, the mean solar
motion would make the second of April fall on the
Saturday, it might actually have fallen on the Friday.
This liability to a difference between mean motions
and actual motions is greater for small periods of
time than for large. In the present instance, the ex-
cess appears to have been generated in the interim of
time between A. M. 2445, the year of the Exodus, and
A.M. 4001, the year of the nativity; an interval of
1556 years. For 1556 tropical years = 568317 days,
one hour, twenty-six minutes, twelve seconds; or
81188 weeks, and one day, one hour, twenty-six mi-
nutes, twelve seconds over; that is, if we deduct two
hours, thirty-five minutes, and thirty-six seconds, for
the excess of the Newtonian standard of the length of
the tropical year above that of Delambre, as accumu-
lated in 1556 years—more than one hour less than an
entire day. Hence, if A. M. 2445, April 3 truly fell
on Saturday; A.M. 4001 it would be within twenty-
three hours of falling upon Saturday again. And even
this is some approximation to a coincidence with that
day at least.
It is, however, to be remembered that our Saviour’s
birthday, considered in its connection with the Jewish
passover, was the tenth of Nisan; and the tenth of
Nisan, like every other Jewish νυχθήμερον, does not
admit of being expressed by any single Julian or tro-
pical day, which cannot be regarded as a νυχθήμερον
as well as it. The tenth of Nisan in any year would
be coincident with parts of two Julian or tropical
Hh 4
472 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
‘days; and an event which happened on the tenth
of Nisan, might be so far considered to belong in
common to both. Hence the birthday of our Lord,
A.M, 4001, if it can be determined to the tenth of
Nisan in that year, and the tenth of Nisan can be
proved to coincide partly with the second and partly
with the third of the tropical April in the same year,
may be said to be either the former or the latter, pro
re nata; the former, if the precise time of the nativity
was the evening, the latter, if it was the morning, of the
corresponding Jewish day. Now this, as I hinted in the
Twelfth Dissertation, vol. i. p. 402, seems actually to
have been the case; and the true time of the nativity to
have been the midnight of the Jewish tenth of Nisan;
which midnight would almost coincide with the tropical
3rd of April. The same thing appears to have held good
with the original separation of the lamb for the passover,
A.M. 24453; which, as there can be no question, was
some time on the tenth of Nisan. The tenth of Nisan in
that year, it has been proved, fell on the Saturday, and
on the 3rd of April; and it may also be proved that it
must have expired on that day, not begun upon it, which
will render the coincidence so much the more complete.
For if the fifteenth of the second month expired on the
Saturday, the tenth of the first must have done the
same. And as the time of setting apart the lamb was
appointed to some time on the ¢fenth, four days before
its sacrifice on the fourteenth, it is to be presumed it
was required to be set apart, on the former, about the
same time at which it was required to be sacrificed, on
the latter; that is, between the evenings, or towards
the close of a Jewish νυχθήμερον, in the one case as well
as in the other *.
᾿Ξ Should any one still con- sult of our calculations concern-
sider it a difficulty that the re- ing the succession of days and
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 473
To proceed then with the course of our inquiry; I
nights, for the latter part of the
period between the Creation and
the birth of Christ, does not
square so exactly with the true
place of the third of April in
the year of the Nativity ; as the
former part squared with the
assumption of its place in the
year of the Exodus: perhaps
the following considerations may
contribute to mitigate this difh-
culty, if they do not remove it
altogether.
The calculation, for each of
the periods in question, pro-
ceeded upon the supposition,
that the succession of days and
nights, between the Creation
and the Exodus, and between
the Exodus and the Nativity,
went on alike; and that the
mean length of one νυχθήμερον
was always the same with the
mean length of another: a sup-
position which, with respect to
the first of the intervals so de-
termined, there is no reason
whatever to consider doubtful.
But with respect to the latter ;
there were two occasions, one in
the time of Joshua, B. C. 1520,
the other in the reign of Heze-
kiah@, B. C. 710, when the
constant, unvaried, and uniform
succession of days and nights did
experience some interruption ;
the nature and effect of which
will best be estimated by con-
sidering what would have been
the case if it had never hap-
pened.
Between a certain νυχθήμερον,
a Josh. x. 12—14. 2 Kings xx. 8—11. 2 Chron. xxxii. 31.
B.C. 1560, inclusive, and the
same νυχθήμερον in the time of
Joshua, B. C. 1520, exclusive,
there would be forty natural
years; or 14,609 days and nights,
sixteen hours, which I shall con-
sider equivalent to another day
and night: and consequently,
2087 weeks, and one day of an-
other. Let this νυχθήμερον, for
argument’s sake, be assumed as
April 1, which B.C. 1560 fell
upon Thursday ; and therefore
B. C. 1520 would fall upon Fri-
day. In this case, the next vv-
χθήμερον, April 2, ought to have
fallen on Saturday ; and if the
succession of νυχθήμερα went on
as before, it would fall upon
Saturday.
But let it be further supposed,
for argument’s sake also, that
the miracle in the time of Jo-
shua was wrought upon Friday ;
and that upon Friday, April 1.
The effect of this miracle was
that one day as such was pro-
longed to the length of two ; that
is, a day of twelve hours was
made a day of twenty-four >—
without affecting the day of the
month, or the day of the week ;
(for April 1 did not thereby be-
come April 2, nor Friday be-
come Saturday;) but only the
absolute length of one individual
νυχθήμερον, compared with what
the length of every νυχθήμερον
was before, and what it con-
tinued to be afterwards. The
actual April 1 was Friday, and
the actual April 2 was Satur-
b The author of
the book of Ecclesiasticus says the same thing of this day in the time of Joshua:
ch. xlvi. 4. So likewise Justin Martyr, Dialogus, 419. 1. 15. and Dionysius the
Areopagite, Epistola vii. Ad Polycarpum. Operum ii. go. and the Scholia of
Maximus, Ibid. 94, 95.
474
Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
‘shall mention only one circumstance more and then
conclude.
day ; but the actual length of
that νυχθήμερον, of which this
April 1 was a part, was twelve
hours greater than usual.
If then a stranger to this ef-
fect were calculating the succes-
sion of days and nights from a
certain date, before the time of
this anomaly, wp to a certain
date after it; and calculating
it upon the supposition that
they had always gone on alike,
and had always been of uniform
length; it is manifest that he
would arrive at a conclusion
which would be true in theory,
but false in fact; viz. that a
given νυχθήμερον of calculated time
began twelve hours later than
the same portion of actual time
did. He would suppose, for in-
stance, that the νυχθήμερον ex-
pressed by April 1, B. C. 1520,
was an ordinary νυχθήμερον of
twenty-four hours; whereas it
was an extraordinary one of
thirty-six: and that the next
νυχθήμερον, expressed by April 2,
began as usual at the expiration
of twenty-four hours of actual
time ; whereas it did not begin
until the expiration of thirty-
siz. Twelve hours of the cal-
culated second of April were
merged in the actual first ; and
instead of coinciding with Satur-
day, actually made a part of Fri-
day. But one who was ignorant
of this anomaly would suppose
they made part of the Saturday,
and he would compute them ac-
cordingly; that is, his calcu-
lated April 2 would be supposed
to begin twelve hours later than
the νυχθήμερον which it expressed.
His calculated April 2 would be
reckoned to belong wholly to
Saturday, whereas in reality
twelve hours of it were merged
in the Friday.
If the effect which ensued in
the time of Joshua was repeated
in the time of Hezekiah, then
another twelve hours of time,
which should belong to the cal-
culated νυχθήμερον, would be
merged in the actual νυχθήμερον
immediately before it ; and both
these anomalies together would
produce this effect : that reckon-
ing from a certain date before
the time of Joshua to a certain
date after the time of Heze-
kiah, and ignorant of each of
these miracles, I should suppose
a certain calculated νυχθήμερον
(we will suppose the third of
April) to have been wholly co-
incident with a certain day of
the week, (we will assume the
Sunday,) when in fact it was
wholly merged in the day before
it. ‘That is to say, ever after
the miracle in the time of Heze-
kiah, the actual place of a given
νυχθήμερον which I might calcu-
late to be Sunday, would be
truly the Saturday.
On this principle, April 3,
B.C. 4, the place of which was
found by calculation to be Sun-
day, would actually be Satur-
day ; that is to say, the first
νυχθήμερον of the 208, 710th
week, from the Creation, B. C.
4004, which I calculated to be-
gin at sunset on the Sunday,
B.C. 4, did actually begin at
sunset on the Saturday, B.C.
4: and if I must call that vvx67-
pepov April 3, then April 3,
which I supposed to be Sunday,
was in reality Saturday. Now
it makes no difference whether
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 475
In the second year after the Exodus‘, A. M. 2446,
B. C. 1559, on the first day of the first month, the
Tabernacle being complete in all its parts, was set up;
and either at the same time or soon afterwards the
Tabernacle service must have begun. On the four-
teenth day ensuing the first Levitical passover was
celebrated in its season. It is a natural and ob-
vious question, On what day of the week this cele-
bration would fall? in answer to which I think it is
capable of proof that the passover fell in the year after
the Exodus, relatively to the days of the week, exactly
as it had fallen in the year of the Exodus itself. If
so, the same must have been the case with the tenth of
Nisan.
In order to this proof I shall assume only, that from
the time of the commencement of the Levitical ser-
vice, the year of the Jews must necessarily be con-
sidered lunar, whatsoever it was before; and therefore,
that the celebration of the passover, in this year, must
have coincided with the full of the moon, whatsoever
had been the case in the year before it. The fourteenth
of Nisan, in the year after the Exodus, A. M. 2446, or
B.C. 1559, would be determined by the paschal full
moon, and either fall on the same day with that, or
immediately before it; and the paschal full moon
we were ignorant of the anoma- lowed to be just: and perhaps
lies in question, or did not take
them into account: which yet
was the case when I instituted
the calculation given above. It
is not surprising, then, that the
ultimate result did not square
with the truth; but was found
to be a whole νυχθήμερον in ex-
cess. The difference is now ex-
plained ; for the above course of
reasoning, I think, must be al-
this very difference between the
matter of fact, and the result of
calculations which would other-
wise be true, is some confirma-
tion reflexively of the truth of the
miracles which produced it ; mi-
racles indeed attested by certain
obscure traditions of profane
history itself. Vide Herodotus,
11. 142. Pomponius Mela, i. 9.
f Exod. xl. 2. 17. Numb. ix. 3. 5.
476 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
‘would be determined by the vernal equinox, and either
coincide with that, or at the utmost precede or follow
it within certain limits, such as appear to have held
good subsequently. For there is no reason why the
same rule, in this respect, which prevailed in the time
of our Saviour, when the vernal equinox fell upon
March 22, should not be considered admissible at any
period before that, when the date of the same equinox
was proportionally more in advance. If the vernal
equinox was supposed to be arrived six or seven
days before its true date at one time, it might be sup-
posed arrived at the same distance of time before its
true date at another. Hence, if when that date was
nominally March 24, and actually March 22, the pass-
over might still be celebrated on March 18, it is only
in accordance with the principle of such an usage, that
when the date of the vernal equinox was nominally
April 5, and actually April 3, the passover might yet
be celebrated on March 30.
Now, on the principle of the lunar and the solar re-
volutions, between which, for periods of years which
are multiples of nineteen, the number of years in a
Metonic cycle—a certain ratio is known to prevail; it
may be proved that if the moon was at the full, for the
meridian of Jerusalem, at 3. 2. in the morning, March
13 in the Julian year, or March 11 in the correspond-
ing tropical year, B.C. 4; it must have been at the
full for the meridian of Alexandria in Egypt, at 11.
24. in the morning on April 1 in the Julian year, or
March 30 in the tropical, B.C. 1559. The details of
this proof I have thrown into the margin*. But if
* The statement of the proof nations, the revolution of the
is as follows: sun is found to anticipate that
In nineteen tropical years, or of the moon by two hours, four
two hundred and thirty-five lu- minutes, and nineteen seconds.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 4°77
that was the case, it is manifestly possible that the
passover might be celebrated on March 30, and there-
days) h. m 8
ΤΥ “10 lonations 7.50. See ts = 6939 16 32 28
And 19 tropical years of Delambre = 6939 14 28 9
Sune Anticipation (O20 ore eek. = me hy iG
This difference must be added to a given time of the moon’s
age in reckoning forwards; and deducted from it in reckoning
backwards.
Now in 19 x 12 or 228 years, the Anticipation ἢ, m. 5.
SURI FG eS eb ἐν Ha ae πρὶ ia ἡ 8 Ὁ 28
And in 228 x6 or 1368 years it........ = 24xX6 288 1368
ΝΟΥ ΟΥΑΙ 0 7.0 12 ee ss sa 8 16 76
ΡΥ τ KOO. FOU OL, ἐν ἐπ 6 32 9:82
τ το ἐν ΠῚ ὙΠ Sik ga = 4 8 38
Now 1558=228x6+76xX2+19xX2 Lh a
Hence in 1558 years the Anticipation te 70 1 3 5 8 {5 SIRS
Now, the hours being reckoned from midnight, let the moon
be supposed at the full, B.C. 4, for the meridian of Jerusalem,
on d. oe
Mareh>13) 14. 112
Add an half Junation 14... 18:. 92
Moon new at Jerusalem, March 27 21 24
Deduct 12
New moon at Alexandria, March 270 21 12
d. h. 4 as. mh
ΠΣ τ ΤᾺΝ as oak dic Saisie oe oo nes a7 St Se
The Anticipation for 1558 years .:.......... 7 1 53 58
Moon new at Alexandria, B.C.1562. March 20 19 18 2
Let B.C. 1562. be considered the first of a series of Metonic
eycles—B. C. 1559. is the third year of that cycle complete, or
the beginning of the fourth. To obtain the moon’s epact at the
end of her third year from the beginning of a cycle, we must
proceed thus:
Mean difference of one lunar and one solar year, ἃ, ἢ.
m. 5.
exclusive of seconds ..:............. πο 10 St oe
Multiply by three........ eB Wack nee aia
Mean difference of three lunar and three solar
Years.) SESSA. Sey Ce Ore caste fea ER Ὁ
Deduct one. langeiom ᾿ς iss ie ks seo ἄρ᾽ χ 4836
Moon’s epact in the third year.......... ois Bly BAe cS
478 ᾿ Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
- fore that the fourteenth of Nisan might coincide with
March 30. If so, it would fall upon the fourth day of
the week, or Wednesday: and consequently the tenth
of Nisan on the seventh, or the Saturday. For if, in
the year of Exodus, the third of April fell on the
Saturday, then, in the year after the Exodus, it would
fall on the Sunday: and if April 3 in that year was a
Sunday, March 30, before it, must have been a Wed-
nesday. 7
On this principle, if Nisan 14. March 30. was a
Wednesday, Nisan 1. March 17. was a Thursday: and
if the Tabernacle was set up on that day, it was set up
on the Thursday®. But it would not follow from this
fact that the Tabernacle service began on the Thurs-
day. The business of setting up the Tabernacle, which
was preliminary to that commencement, might occupy
one or two days’ time; and the actual commencement
of the service might not take place until the Saturday ;
that is, until the third of Nisan. There are many rea-
sons to render it probable that the Levitical service
would originally begin either with the evening of the
Sabbath, or the evening of the first day of the week ; and
we saw in Dissertation xii. vol. i. p. 413, that it appears
to have finally ceased on one of those two days in par-
ticular. This fact seems to me to be intimated in the
account which is given of the offerings of the princes,
or heads of the tribes*; which began as soon as the
ἀν dais δὰ 8.
Deduct this epact from March.............. 20 19 18 2
when the moon was new B. C. 1562. ....... 3 2 16 Ὁ
B.U.c tesa. moon waa new, Marek νυν Ie. AT ee 0.
BG Oe Te ION, 5 ee eae k see 12 20. 94... o
Full ον 38. 4550, April . . ious ce pn ae 1 a gee
g Exod. xl. 2. 17. 34. Numb. ix. 15. b Numb. vii. 1—88.
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover, 479
erection and consecration of the Tabernacle were duly
completed, and which lasted for twelve days in order.
It is reasonable to suppose that all this began and con-
tinued so as to be over before the time when the pass-
over was celebrated ; that is, before the fourteenth day
of the month: and therefore, that it began and was
completed between the first and the fourteenth, after
the one, but before the other’. In this case, nothing is
more probable than that it began on the second of
Nisan, which would be on the Friday; and ended on
the thirteenth, which would coincide with the Tues-
day.
Moreover it appears from Numbers x. 11—33. that
after all these things the cloud was first removed from
the Tabernacle on the twentieth of the second month 3.
and the people journeyed subsequently without inter-
ruption until the twenty-third. It is an obvious con-
jecture that this stopping at the end of a three days’
journey, beginning with the twentieth of Jar, was for
the sake of the rest on the sabbath; which would thus
coincide with the twenty-third. And if the fourteenth
of Nisan fell on the Wednesday, and Nisan now con-
sisted of twenty-nine days, this conjecture would be
true; for the twenty-first and twenty-eighth of Nisan,
the sixth, the thirteenth, and the twentieth, of Jar
would necessarily be Wednesdays also; and therefore
the twenty-third would be a Saturday. We may col-
lect too from Numbers xi. 18. 31, 32. that the supply
of the quails, which ensued so soon after the arrival at
Taberah, ensued on the twenty-fourth: and conse-
quently on the first day of the week. In this case the
supply of quails, like that of manna, took place on. the
first day of the week in this year, as that had taken
place on the first day of the week the year before it:
i Numb. ix. 1. 2—5.
480 Appendix. Dissertation Eleventh.
_and this upon the twenty-fourth, as that did upon the
sixteenth of the same month.
It constitutes no difficulty, that we suppose the four-
teenth of the Jewish Nisan to fall, in two successive
years, on the same day of the week. This could not
be the case with any day in the solar year, nor with
any day in the lunar, as such; but it might be the
case with a day which made part of a solar year in one
year, and part of a lunar in the next: which, as we
have already observed, was probably true of the four-
teenth of Nisan in the year before, and the year after
the Exodus respectively. A.M. 2445, B.C. 1560, the
fourteenth of Nisan, if we are right in the conclusions
established, coincided with the seventh of April; and
A.M. 2446, B. C. 1559, with the thirtieth of March:
both of which must have fallen on the Wednesday if
either of them did so. If, however, A. M. 2446, B.C.
1559, the moon was at the full on March 30. 11. 24.
in the morning; A. M. 2445, B.C. 1560, it was at the
full ten days, twenty-one hours, before that; viz.
April 10. 8. 24. in the morning. This day would an-
swer to the seventeenth of Nisan, and both would fall
on the Saturday. They would coincide also with the
day when the passage of the Red sea took place; at
which time, it might almost be conjectured from Exod.
xiv. 19, 20. Joshua xxiv. 7. that the night was light,
or the moon was at the full.
Moreover, if B.C. 1559, A. M. 2446, the new moon
of Nisan fell on the tropical March 15; then after the
lapse of thirty-nine years, B.C. 1520, A. M. 2485, the
year of the Hisodus, it admits of proof that it would fall
on April 3*: that is, in the year of the Hisodus, the
* This computation will stand as follows: d. th. mi: is
B.C. 1559. A. M. 2446. New moon, March τὸ 17 2 2
Anticipation to be added for two
Metonic.cycles or 38: years i 8.38
On the date of the Exodus, and of the first passover. 481
neomenia of Nisan coincided with the vernal equinox,
which still fell upon that day as before. It may be
proved also that they both coincided with the first day
of the week. For if A. M. 2446, April 3 fell on the
Sunday, then A. M. 2474, after ove solar cycle, it would
fall on the Sunday again; and A. M. 2485, at the end
of the eleventh year of a second, its place would again
be Sunday. This too would be an observable coin-
cidence; for as the entrance into the promised land,
after-a forty years’ wandering in the wilderness, was
so far a new epoch in the history of the Jews; what
fitter conjuncture of circumstances could be selected to
characterise that epoch, than the time when the neo-
menia of Nisan, the vernal equinox, and the first day
of the week all appear to have fallen out together ?
d. m. m. 5.
B.C. 1521. A. Μ. 2484. New moon, March 15 21 10 40
Deduct for one year’s epact ee ae ° fe)
B.C. 1520. A. M. 2485. New moon, March Bx Oto 140
Add one mean lunation ao te aes O
Moon new again, April 2 jee gig we
According to the method of calculation, before referred to, the sun
entered the vernal sign in the same year, on April 3. 13. 6. 34.
the hours, in each instance, being reckoned from midnight.
VOL. LIT. li
APPENDIX.
atte
=<
DISSERTATION ΧΗ.
On the Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and of Israel.
Vide Appendix, Dissertation xi. supra.
Tue chronology of the kings of Judah, from Solo-
mon downwards, and as far as they run parallel with
each other, that of the kings of Israel, upon which I
did not enter in the preceding Dissertation, is yet of
so much importance, and encumbered with so many
difficulties, that its consideration may justly be pro-
nounced a desideratum. I trust, therefore, that no
apology will be requisite for devoting to this subject
the following pages. |
I shall assume for the present, that no more is
known of the chronology in question than the data
already established : viz. that the first of Solomon coin-
cided with B. C.1014, and the fourteenth of Hezekiah,
either wholly or in part, with B.C.710; and there-
fore his first, either wholly or in part, with B. Ο. 744.
The first of Hezekiah then, B.C. 724, being considered
as an intermediate period, the two following Tables
will exhibit a synopsis of the order and succession of
the reigns in question, of their Scripturaéd or historical
lengths, and of the years before Christ in which they
began, from the first of Solomon to the last of Zede-
kiah.
TABLE FIRST.
KINGS OF JUDAH. KINGS OF ISRAEL.
Years. B.C. Years. B.C.
1. Solomon 40 1014
11. Rehoboam 17 974 1. Jeroboam 22 974
ee eb ew "
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 483
KINGS OF JUDAH.
Years. B.C. Years.
ur. Abijam 3 957
Iv. Asa 41 955
1. Nadab 2
m1. Baasha 24
ιν. Elah 2
v. Zimriseven days
vi. Omri 12
vir. Ahab 22
v. Jehoshaphat 25 914
vitr. Ahaziah 2
ΙΧ. Jehoram 12
vi. Jehoram 8 890
vir. Ahaziah I 883
vi. Athaliah 6 582 κ᾿ Jehu 28
1x. Joash 40 876
ΧΙ. Jehoahaz 17
ΧΙ. Jehoash 16
x. Amaziah 29 836
x11. Jeroboam ii. 41
x1. Uzziah 52 807
xiv. Zachariah six months
xv. Shallum one month
xvi. Menahem 10
xvir. Pekahiah 2
xvii. Pekah 20
x1. Jotham 16 755
x11. Ahaz 16 739
xix. Hoshea 9
xiv. Hezekiah ὑπὸ 724
abe δ να δ ὗς
TABLE SECOND.
KINGS OF JUDAH.
Years. B.C.
XIV.” EABOGRPRM a pecs ir eats hae se. oss 29 724
XV. ΟΝ caus ον 55 695
ἀν Amon UE AeA 2 641
KINGS OF ISRAEL.
B.C.
953
952
999
928
917
896
895
882
727
484. Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
Years. B.C.
SHA OOID.. 6. oascnn- st iovs seas μὰ es 31 640
xvi. Jehoahaz three months............ 609
STS, ΠΟΙ ΔΙ τὴν eke ss can babe ad os II 609
xx. Jehoiachin three months ten days 598
ws, ον οὐο νι τοῦς It 598
Eleventh of Zedekiah............ ~ 588
With regard to the verification of these Tables;
the great practical difficulty concerns the absolute
lengths of the reigns ascribed to each particular king,
and the synchronisms of particular years of one reign
with particular years of another. Nor can any single
rule be devised which will apply alike to each, and
reconcile them both together. But it is an obvious
possibility that the lengths of the reigns might be
reckoned by one rule, and the synchronisms by an-
other ; that the former, for instance, might be referred
to some nominal apx7—and the latter toa true. This
distinction, in my opinion, does actually hold good:
the lengths of the reigns are referred in every instance
to a nominal ἀρχὴ, but the synchronisms to the true.
The reign of every king, where the contrary is not
distinctly specified, is supposed to begin and to end
with Nisan; the jirst month in the sacred year.
Hence the years of their reigns are necessarily reckon-
ed as full years; and current years are taken for com-
plete. But no synchronism is ever referred except to
the true date of the reigns in question, or to the month
in which they actually began. If there is any doubt
as to the existence of this double rule, I think it will
be entirely removed by the analytical examination of
each particular reign in its order.
First, then, as the reign of Solomon has been shewn
to have begun in the spring, so, from 1 Kings xii. 1. 3.
5.12. 20. 25—33. may it be collected that it termi-
nated in the spring: and, consequently, that he reigned
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 485
forty years complete. On this principle both the true
and the nominal ἀρχὴ of Rehoboam, and by parity of
consequence of Jeroboam, alike will bear date from
Nisan, B. C.974. Hence the following synchronisms,
1 of Rehoboam. 1 of Jeroboam. Nisan B.C. 974—973.
9 pepe pie tee eset rT LT sc cuiegiga yas dae e588, els sabes 958—957.
Now® the first of Abijam began in the erghteenth
of Jeroboam: whence it seems a reasonable inference
that Rehoboam reigned seventeen years complete.
Hence, again as before, both nominally and truly,
1 of Abijam. 18 of Jeroboam. Nisan B.C. 957—956.
ΟΣ A ee oe OY ies, Peden Ks genes ΠῚ 955—954.
Now Abijam could not have reigned more than two
years and part of a third year ; for as his reign began
in the ezghteenth, so did Asa’s” in the twentieth, of
Jeroboam. We may suppose, then, that he died about
the middle of his therd year, the Tisri, B.C. 955. The
first year of Asa, therefore, will bear date truly from
Tisri, but nominally from Nisan, B.C. 955: both in
the twentieth of Jeroboam.
Hence 1 of Asa. 20 of Jeroboam. Nisan B.C. 955—954.
D svn duns BRS. λει chs ea ΣΝ alighs 953—952.
Now the jirst of Nadab began in the second of Asa‘;
yet the jirst of Asa had begun in the twentieth of Je-
roboam. Both these statements would be true, if Je-
roboam died zz his twenty-second year, after the
Nisan, but before the TVisri, Β. Ο. 058. For, then,
the first of Nadab would truly begin in the second
of Asa, sometime before Tisri, B. C. 953.
Hence 3 of Asa. 1 of Nadab. Nisan B.C. 958—952.
4 RIAL IR VBR AHA LARM.. 952—951.
Now Nadab died in the third of Asa‘, though he be-
gan to reign in his second. If so, Nadab did not reign
a1 Kings xv. 1. 2. xive 21. 2 Chron. xiii. 1. b 1 Kings xv. 9. ¢ Tbid.
XV. 25. d Ibid. xv. 28.
118
486 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
- two years complete: and if he died in his second year,
after the Nisan, but before the Tisri, B.C. 952, both
he would die, and Baasha begin to reign®, truly in the
third of Asa; before the Tisri, B. C. 952.
Hence 4of Asa. 1 of Baasha. Nisan B.C. 952—951.
ROR νοὶ WA: hed SORE 9! MLN ες 930—929.
OT shies ca ts TD ask san ciitind harden sina tehnns 929—928.
Now the jirst of Elah ‘began in the twenty-sixth of
Asa: and this would be truly the case if Baasha died
im his nominal twenty-fourth, after the Nisan, but be-
fore the Tisri, B.C. 929, in the true twenty-sixth of
Asa.
And hence it is an obvious inference that the nume-
ral notes at 2 Chron. xv. 19. and xvi. 1, which speak
of the thirty-fifth and the thirty-sixth of Asa, respec-
tively, the former of peace between Israel and Judah
up to that year, the latter of an invasion of Judah by
Baasha, as made 2) that year, are corrupt, the one for
the twenty-fifth, and the other for the twenty-sixth ;
in which case, but in which only, they might both be
consistent with the truth. Compare Josephus, Ant.
Vili. xi. 4. xii. 1—6.
Again, 27 of Asa. 1 of Elah. Nisan B. C. 929—928.
"ες os deals egelte _, eee heron Nenaehy ΟΡ ΤΥ 928—927.
Now Elah died in the twenty-seventh of Asa®: and
this might be the case if he died in his nominal
second, after the Nisan, but before the Tisri, B.C.
928: for that might thus be in the true twenty-seventh
of Asa.
After the death of Elah, besides the seven days of
Zimri, there was an interregnum of four years in
length", perhaps taken up by the contest between
Tibni and Omri; which extended from the true twenty-
e 1 Kings xv. 33. f Ibid. xvi. 8. & Ibid. xvi. to. 15. h Ibid. xvi.
15. 23.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 487
seventh, to the true thirty-first of Asa. But this is in-
cluded in the twelve years ascribed to Omri.
Hence 28 of Asa. 1 of Omri. Nisan B. C. 928—927.
G0: tam 4D) 136 twa eel onde nts 917—916.
Now it is manifestly possible that Omri might die
in his twelfth year zrcomplete ; soon after Nisan, B.C.
917. In this case the reign of Ahab would actually
begin in the true thirty-cighth of Asa', which would
not expire until Tisri B. C. 917.
Hence 39 of Asa. 1 of Ahab. Nisan Β. C.917—916.
Whastssivesis .: Bis. οὐ. apreenth pun 915—91 4.
Now that Asa did not reign forty-one years complete
may be inferred from 2 Chron. xvi. 13; which says
that he died zm his forty-first year. But it follows
most clearly from 1 Kings xxii. 41, which makes the
_ first of Jehoshaphat to begin in the fourth of Ahab.
I infer, then, that Asa died at the end of his nominal,
but the mzddle of his true, forty-first, Nisan B.C. 914:
which might also be truly zz the fourth of Ahab.
Hence 1 of Jehosh. 4o0f Ahab. Nisan B.C. 914—913.
9. ὐλτίη AEE BR OE OBES OTE οὐδ... 896—895.
The twenty-second of Ahab must thus have synchro-
nised with the nineteenth of Jehoshaphat; and if Ahab
did not reign twenty-two years complete, he would die
én his twenty-second year, after the Nisan, B.C. 896.
The circumstances of his death, which was in battle
against the Syrians, render it almost certain that
it took place in the spring quarter of the year, at
the time when kings go out to battle: in which case,
if he began to reign, as we have seen, about Nisan,
B.C.917, either he must have reigned more than
twenty-two years, or he must have died in his twenty-
second year, not long after Nisan, B.C. 896.
it Kings xvi. 23. 29.
114
488 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
On this principle the reign of his successor would
begin in the nineteenth of Jehoshaphat: yet, 1 Kings
xxii. 40. 51, it is made to begin in the seventeenth ;
and, 2 Kings iii. 1, the first of Jehoram his successor
is supposed to bear date from the ezghteenth. But if
the reign of Ahab truly began in the thirty-eighth of
Asa, and if the length of his reign was truly twenty-
two years either current or complete, it is impossible
that Ahab could have died, and Ahaziah have begun
to reign, in the seventeenth of Jehoshaphat, though
they might, as we have seen, in the nzneteenth. That
there are corruptions of numbers in the sacred text,
which may occasionally be detected, is an indis-
putable fact; and one such has been already pointed
out. Among these, none perhaps was, ὦ priori, more
likely to happen than the corruption of seventeen into
nineteen. ‘There is a case in point with regard to the
first of Joash, king of Israel; which, 2 Kings xiii. 10,
is supposed to bear date from the thirty-seventh of
Joash, king of Judah, and yet will be shewn in its
proper place to bear date in reality from his ¢herty-
ninth. In the same way it is equally possible that
the seventeenth of Jehoshaphat should be in reality the
nineteenth ; and by parity of consequence the erghteenth
should be.in reality the ¢wentieth. For, as to this
second corruption, it would be a necessary effect of the
former. If the reign of Ahaziah was supposed to have
begun in the seventeenth of Jehoshaphat, it would be
supposed to have ended, and therefore the reign of
Jehoram to have begun, in his etghteenth.
The method of solution, to which recourse is fre-
quently had in cases of this description, that of sup-
posing a son associated with his father before his
death, is of no avail in the present instance. We can
suppose neither that Ahab was associated with Omri
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 489
two years before Ais death, nor Ahaziah with Ahab
two years before his ; because the /ast year of Omri is
the jirst year of Ahab, and both bear date in the
thirty-eighth of Asa; and the ast year of Ahab must
be the first of Ahaziah, or Ahaziah could not have
survived him at all. With regard, however, to this
method of solution in general, it appears to me so very
questionable that, without the most demonstrative evi-
dence of its truth, I should think it ought never for a
moment to be entertained. There is no proof that any
one of the children of the monarchs, either of Judah
or of Israel, was ever associated with them; or, if
they were, that the historical notices of their reigns
are dated from the time of such association, and not
from the actual deaths of their predecessors. The
cases of Jehoram and of Uzziah, both kings of Judah,
are cases in point; for though the former was struck
with a foul and incurable disease fwo years before his
death, and the latter, for probably a much longer time
towards the end of his reign, was a leper, and excluded
by his situation from any actual share in the govern-
ment; there is no mention of their sons’ being asso-
ciated with them, nor any proof that their reigns are
not supposed to extend to the very day of their death.
I lay it down, then, as a fundamental principle, that no
king’s reign bears date except from the demise of his
predecessor; and, consequently, that the specified lengths
of their reigns are in every instance the time for which
they reigned alone.
But to proceed: I wil] now assume that the true
beginning of the reign of Ahaziah was after the Nisan,
and before the Tisri, B.C. 896. in the nineteenth of
Jehoshaphat.
Hence, 19 of Jehosh. 1 of Ahaziah. Nisan B. C. 896—895.
BU Gi ctab ene Se ον 895—894.
490 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
Now Ahaziah died zz his second year, after the Nisan,
and possibly after the Tisri, B. C. 895. Hence, the
first of Jehoram would truly bear date between Tisri,
B. C. 895, and Nisan, B. C. 894, in the true twentieth
of Jehoshaphat.
When, then, it is said * that Jehoram king of Israel
reigned in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jeho-
shaphat king of Judah, it is manifest that there is
some corruption of the text; for this assertion is in-
consistent not only with what has just been establish-
ed, but also with 2 Kings viii. 16; which tells us that
Jehoram,the king of Judah, began to reign in the fifth of
Jehoram, the king of Israel—and yet this Jehoram had
begun to reign in the second of the other. Some com-
mentators would explain this by supposing Jehoram
associated with his father in his seventeenth year, Je-
horam the king of Israel to have begun to reign in
Jehoshaphat’s eighteenth, and Jehoshaphat to have
died in his twenty-second. But this is only to explain
one difficulty by another; for Jehoshaphat’s reign can-
not be abridged to twenty-two years, instead of twenty-
Jive, without abridging that of Jehoram to three years
instead of eight: both which would be clearly repug-
nant to the direct assertions of the text. It is much
more probable that 2 Kings i. 17. contains an interpo-
lation, without which it originally stood thus: So he
died, according to the word of the Lord which Elijah
had spoken; and Jehoram reigned in his stead, be-
cause he had no son. Interpolations of this kind there
are, as Well as corruptions of numbers; the presence of
which creates inconceivable difficulty, while their re-
moval sets every thing to rights. There is one in
2 Kings viii. 16 itself, in the words, Jehoshaphat being
then king of Judah, the palpable absurdity of which,
k 2 Kings 1. 17.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 491
especially when taken in conjunction with 2 Kings
i. 17. as that stands, is too glaring to be overlooked.
There is another, as we shall see, 2 Kings xv. 30: and,
perhaps, also ix. 29: though I do not know that there
are any more with which we at least should now be
concerned.
Again, 20 of Jehosh. 1 of Jehoram. Nisan B. C. 895—894.
QB igi cotdtis μὲ Gib alli habe t-te 890—889.
If Jehoshaphat died in his twenty-fifth year, after the
Nisan, B. C. 890, it would be truly in the fifth of Je-
horam : hence the first of Jehoram his son! would also
truly begin in the same. Hence,
1 of Jehoram. 6 of Jehoram. Nisan B.C. 890—889.
i.e. ἀφο ύναει δον. εὐ οὐ εορ se coe 883—882.
Jehoram died én his eighth year, after the Nisan, B.C.
883, which was truly zm the twelfth of Jehoram: the
reign of Ahaziah would, consequently, truly begin in
the twelfth of Jehoram™: and as to the statement
which occurs ix. 29. since thzs is obviously at variance
with that, we should be bound to prefer that which is
more consistent with the context: and this is viii. 25.
not ix. 29. But, indeed, it is no unreasonable con-
jecture that the whole verse is an interpolation.
Again, 1 of Ahaziah. 13 of Jehoram. Nisan B. C. 883—882.
The time of the death of Jehoram was the time of the
death of Ahaziah; and the time of the death of Jeho-
ram was when the Israelitish army either was besieg-
ing or was defending Ramoth-Gilead, and after there
had been an engagement with the Syrians"; from the
wounds received in which Jehoram was not yet re-
covered at the time. I think these circumstances au-
thorize the inference that the death of Jehoram hap-
pened in the latter half of the year, between Tisri, B.C.
1 9 Kings viii. 16, 17. m Ibid. viii. 25. n bid. viii. 28, 29. ix. 14, 15.
2 Chron. xxii. 5, 6.
492 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
883, and Nisan, B. C. 882, which might be truly in his
twelfth year°, or only at the very beginning of his
thirteenth. Between the close of the true twelfth of
Jehoram, B.C. 883, and the commencement of his no-
minal fourteenth, Nisan B. C. 882, there might be a
very short interval of time; during which neither Atha-
liah nor Jehu might be yet firmly seated, the former
on the throne of Judah, the latter on that of Israel. A
few weeks’ or even a few months’ interregnum in
either case would be nothing extraordinary: for there
was some interval between the wounding of Ahaziah
and his death P—and between the death of Jehoram
and Jehu’s beginning to reign in Samaria as such 4:
from which time in particular the testimony of 2 Kings
x. 30. authorizes us apparently to deduce the begin-
ning of his reign. It is a possible case, then, that both
the first of Athaliah and the first of Jehu might truly
and nominally alike bear date from Nisan, B.C. 882.
Hence 1 of Athaliah. 1 of Jehu. Nisan B.C. 882—881.
Tax scbatblde ΠΣ 876—875.
Now Athaliah* was put to death at the end of her
siath year, and in the seventh from the beginning of
the concealment of Joash, when he was one year old.
Hence the first of Joash bears date from Nisan, B. C.
876; which was truly in the seventh of Jehu’.
Hence 1 of Joash. 7 of Jehu. Nisan Β. C. 876—875, .
ORiiig tia RB isp iahrrdila tone li ett. ee 855—854.
And if Jehu died at the very end of his twenty-erghth
year, the first of Jehoahaz would truly bear date from
Nisan B.C. 854, in the twenty-third of Joash *.
Hence 23 of Joash. 1 of Jehoahaz. Nisan B.C. 854—853.
Uk eg ae πα Jah. ao coiie. ae 838—837.
And if Jehoahaz died towards the beginning of his
o 2 Kings iii. I. p 2 Chron. xxii. 6—g9. q 2 Kings x. 1.12.15. 17. 30.
35,36 °F Tbid. xi. 3, 4.21. 2 Chron. xxii. 12. xxiii. 1. xxvi. 1. 5.2 Kings
xii. I. t Ibid. xili. 1.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 493
seventeenth year, after or about the Nisan, B. C. 838,
the jirst of his son Joash, king of Israel, might truly
begin in the thirty-ninth of Joash king of Judah. It
is not possible, however, that it could have begun in
his thirty-seventh ; so that the thirty-seventh of Joash
(2 Kings xiii. 10.) is a manifest corruption for the
thirty-ninth. Besides which, the jirst of Amaziah,
who succeeded Joash, began in the second of Joash,
king of Israel". The second of the king of Israel,
therefore, must have begun in the fortieth of the king
of Judah at least; and, consequently, his first in the
thirty-ninth. Hilton
- Hence 39 of Joash. 1 of Joash. Nisan B.C. 838—837.
ΦΟ. Bere ace FAS tke την 1H 837—836.
Now let Joash be supposed to have died at the very
end of his fortieth year; the true first of Amaziah,
and the true third of Joash, would thus synchronise
almost throughout: or the reign of Amaziah would
begin towards the end of the second of Joash.
Hence 1 of Amaziah. 3 of Joash. Nisan B.C. 836—835.
BOA ΕΨΨΡΤΟ Pisin AWS inary. Gai 822—821.
Joash died at the very end of his actual szxteenth, or
beginning of his nominal seventeenth, after or about
the Nisan, B.C. 822: which would be truly in the
Jifteenth of Amaziah’. Hence
15 of Amaziah. 1 of Jeroboam ii. Nisan B. C. 822—821.
PAD is stds aiah de δι χὰὺς Gael δυθυγουδεδυννν οἱ 808---807.
And if Amaziah died at the ed of his actual twenty-
ninth year, about Nisan, B. C. 807, the first of Uzziah
his successor would truly bear date from Nisan, B. C.
807, and truly zz the fifteenth of Jeroboam.
Now Jeremiah lii. 31. compared with 2 Kings xxv.
27. is a proof that the numeral statement for fifteen
might possibly be corrupted into that for seventeen;
u 2 Kings xiv. 1. Υ Ibid. xiv. 23.17.2. 2 Chron. xxv. 25. 1.
494 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
in which case, the depravation of seventeen into
twenty-seven would probably be even an easier effect. —
I conclude, then, that, 2 Kings xv. 1, the twenty-seventh
of Jeroboam is a corruption of the ext for the fifteenth,
in which the first of Uzziah truly began.
There is no means of avoiding this inference, except
by supposing an interregnum between the death of
Amaziah in the fifteenth of Jeroboam, and the ac-
cession of Uzziah in his twenty-seventh; a supposition,
which some commentators have accordingly made ; but
for which there appears to me so little reason, that I
consider the other assumption (that of an error in the
text, by which twenty-seven has come to be exhibited
instead of fifteen) on every account to be preferred.
The supposition of an interregnum in the duration of
the kingdom of Judah, or in the regular succession of
one king to another, and that for a period of twelve
years, is most improbable and inconceivable: nor can
any thing be clearer than it is from 2 Kings xiv. 21,
29. xv. 2. 2 Chron. xxvi. 1, 2, 3, that Uzziah was made
king at sexteen years old, immediately on the death of
his father. Hence the statement of his reign will be
as follows.
1 of Uzziah. 16 of Jeroboam. Nisan B.C. 807—806.
RRR DE Re BY cic. oni Ee «ost pesieutiehs 782—781.
Now the jirst of Zachariah is supposed to have begun
in the thirty-erghth of UzziahW: and this might be
the case if, after the death of Jeroboam, about the end
of his forty-first year, the Nisan, B.C. 781, there was
an interregnum in the kingdom of Israel, until the lat-
ter half of the thirty-eighth of Uzziah, some time be-
tween Tisri, B. C. 770, and Nisan, B.C. 769: an in-
terregnum, consequently, of almost twelve years in
duration.
w 2 Kings xv. 8.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 495
On this principle the six months of Zachariah would
begin some time before Nisan, B.C. 769 : which would
be truly zm the thirty-eighth of Uzziah; but they
might not expire until some time after Nisan, B.C.
769: which would be in his thirty-ninth. It is possible,
then, that the one month of Shallum, and the first of
Menahem*, might the one expire, or the other begin,
at the very end of the thirty-ninth of Uzziah, about
Nisan, B. Ο. 7085. Hence
40 of Uzziah. 1 οὗ Menahem. Nisan B.C. '768—767.
Mg ie. isehep s'des EE RS SE, RE, PP PO) ΜΕ Ὲ 759—758.
And if Menahem died at the very end of his ¢enth year,
Pekahiah would truly succeed, Nisan, B. C. ‘758, in the
Jiftieth of Uzziah’. Hence
50 of Uzziah. 1 of Pekahiah. Nisan B.C. 758—757.
ἈΝ ΒΗΕΝ aye Prk « <hubeltieve ΕΘΤΊΝΝΝ, ὙΕΕΡΝ ΟΣ πιγ:.. T57—756.
And if Pekahiah was killed at the end of his second
year, the first of Pekah would truly bear date about
Nisan, B.C. 756, in the jifty-second of Uzziah’.
Hence
δῷ of Uzziah. 1 of Pekah. Nisan B. C. 756—755.
whence if Uzziah died at the end of his fifty-second
year, the first of Jotham would bear date about Nisan,
B. Ὁ. 755, in the true second of Pekah ἃ,
Hence 1 of Jotham. 2 of Pekah. Nisan B.C. 755—754.
Me sated Didi diel ickdth a tigisadocweb ens 740—739.
And if Jotham died at the close of his sixteenth year,
the first of Ahaz might still bear date in the true
seventeenth of Pekah”, about Nisan, B. C. 739.
Hence 1 of Ahaz. 18 of Pekah. Nisan B.C. 739—'738.
B ὁνγμαν νων Bt i eateisd oats) 8s Ὁ ΡΟ ἜΤΗ 737—736.
* The conjecture, here ad- months only, towards the end of
vanced, implies, at the utmost, B.C. 769 or beginning of B.C.
an interregnum of one or two 768.
x 2 Kings xv. 13. 17. y Ibid. xv. 23 2 Ibid. xv. 27. a Ibid. xv. 32.
Ὁ Ibid. xvi. 1.
496 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
If Pekah, then, reigned twenty years‘, he must have
been assassinated in the third of Ahaz. What, then,
shall we say to the prima facie evidence of xv. 30?
And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against
Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew
him, and reigned in his stead, 7m the twentieth year of
Jotham the son of Uxxiah. My answer is, that the
last words of this text are an interpolation; the fact of
which is proved by the very necessity of the case.
For first, it is the direct conclusion from them that
the death of Pekah, and the beginning of the reign of
Hoshea, both coincided with the twentieth of Jotham ;
and that would be recta fronte at variance with
2 Kings xvii. 1.
Secondly, it is not possible to explain the difficulty
by supposing that Jotham might have reigned four
years in conjunction with Uzziah, before his death.
For on this principle the fwentreth of Jotham, as dated
from that ἀρχὴ, must have been the siateenth of Jotham,
as dated from his father’s death; and the twentieth of
Pekah must have synchronised with the sexteenth of
Jotham, and not with the third of Ahaz.
Thirdly, it may be assumed as an indisputable truth,
that no one but Ahaz was king of Judah when Pekah
conspired with Rezin to invade Judea‘: the object of
which invasion, as we learn from Isaiah vii. 6, was to
dethrone Ahaz, and to substitute an usurper in his
stead. Nothing, then, is more probable than that this
invasion took place in the very jfirst year of Ahaz;
and that the recent death of Jotham was the cause of
the invasion itself. For Jotham was a good king and
a prosperous®; which renders it exceedingly improbable
that the Divine Providence would suffer him to be ex-
posed to any such danger in his lifetime; and much
c 2 Kings xv. 27. ἃ Ibid. xvi. 5. 2 Chron. xxviii. 1—15. e Ibid. xxvii.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 497
less to experience the signal defeat which happened to
Ahaz. Yet it must be evident from 2 Kings xv. 37.
that the designs against the kingdom of Judah began
to be formed and acted upon almost zz his lifetime,
and certainly immediately after his death.
These conclusions are placed beyond a question by
the testimony of Isaiah vii. 1-16. and viii. 1-4. which
relate to the invasion and its consequences. The birth
of Maher-shalal-hash-baz took place after this inva-
sion‘, yet one or two years at least’ before the reduc-
tion of Samaria and Damascus, as accomplished by
Tiglath-pileser®. The death of Pekah was subsequent
to all these events, and yet in his twentieth year: I
would arrange them, then, as follows:
tof Ahaz. 18 οἵ Pekah. ineuntibus B.C. 739. Invasion of Judea.
SS eee eee.’ ον νον 7) ᾿ ΠΤ remap
; ὲ Reduction of Sama-
δ΄ ere WO... tt Rela. ως F387 iid aiid Ῥω:
Ν ἀπ bisa 5 ee See exeuntibus .... 736. Death of Pekah.
If, now, Pekah had been put to death at the very
end of his twentieth year, the reign of Hoshea would
properly have borne date from the end of the third, or
the beginning of the fourth, of Ahaz. But it appears
from 2 Kings xviii. 1. that the first of Hezekiah be-
gan in the third of Hoshea; yet from xviii. 9, 10, that
his fourth began in the seventh, and his sixth in the
ninth. It is manifest, then, that the first of Hezekiah
did strictly begin in the fourth of Hoshea; and, conse-
quently, that the jirst of Hoshea' must strictly have
begun in the thirteenth of Ahaz; the beginning of
which might yet be considered the end of his twelfth.
We may assume, then, that the first of Hoshea and
the thirteenth of Ahaz synchronised, perhaps, through-
out. Between the death of Pekah at the end of the
third of Ahaz—and the accession of Hoshea at the be-
ginning of his thirteenth, there was consequently a
f Isaiah viii. 3. © Ibid. viii. 4. ΒΒ 2 Kingsxvi. 7--- 0. xv. 29. _i Ibid. xvii. 1.
VOL. III. Kk
498 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
second interregnum in the kingdom of Israel of nene
years in duration. To proceed then *.
13 of Ahaz. 1 of Hoshea. Nisan B.C. 727—726.
| See ree 4... wivbn’ cpenbe cee beleaie wae 724—723.
If Ahaz died about the mzddle of his sixteenth year,
between the Nisan and the Tisri, B. C.724, the first of
Hezekiah would truly bear date from the same time,
and in the fourth of Hoshea.
Hence 1 of Hezekiah. 4 of Hoshea. Nisan B.C. '724—723.
; ae ee iéaiikckssuhialiavs syash lini 721—720.
_ Nateyhapaarat tae | PROLEE SARS REE OPO PG ἡ ( 719—718.
And if Samaria was actually reduced at any period be-
tween Tisri, B.C. 719, and Nisan, B. Ὁ. 718, it would
truly be reduced in the sexth of Hezekiah and in the
ninth of Hoshea, both.
With regard to the residue of the reign of Heze-
kiah, his nominal fourteenth would begin Nisan, B. C.
711: his true, Tisri, B.C. 711: and the former would
expire Nisan, B.C. 710: the latter Tisri, B.C. 710.
In the latter half of his true fourteenth year, between
Nisan and Tisri, B. C. 710. Sennacherib came up
against him; and a little before the usual period of
seed-time, that is, a little before Tisri, in the same
year, as the very words of Isaiah distinctly imply *,
he was miraculously delivered from him.
The nominal jfif/teenth of his reign would begin and
expire with the Nisan, the true with the Tisri, B.C.
* Syncellus i. 381. 1.17—382.
which he was able to discover
1.14. informs us that all copies of
the books of Kings which he had
been able to see, stated the reign
of Pekah, son of Remaliah, ei-
ther at eighteen or at twenty
years, except one, which he says
was written with great care and
exactness, after originals cor-
rected by Basil of Caesarea him-
self; and there it was stated at
twenty-eight: by the help of
k 2 Kings xix. 29.
that the first of Hoshea did in-
deed coincide with the twelfth
of Ahaz. But the reading in
this instance must have been
produced either by not perceiv-
ing the fact of an interregnum
between Pekah and Hoshea, or
a desire to do away with it, and
to add the years of that inter-
regnum to the reign of the pre-
ceding king.
Isaiah xxxvil. 30.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 499
710 and 709, respectively. We have supposed that his
sickness attacked him immediately after his deliver-
ance from Sennacherib!; and, consequently, in the
first half of his true fifteenth year; which bore date
between Tisri, B. C. 710. and Nisan, B.C. 709. Hence
the fifteen years added to his life™ bore date also be-
tween Tisri, B. C. 710, and Nisan, B.C. 709: and
they were either current years, or complete ; current, if
Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years incomplete, but
complete, if he reigned twenty-nine years complete.
But his reign is stated at twenty-nine years only—and
his nominal first beginning Nisan, B.C. 724, his no-
minal twenty-ninth began Nisan, B.C. 696, and ex-
pired Nisan, B.C.695. To this time from ‘Tisri,
B.C. 710, there would be fourteen years and six
months complete ; or fifteen current years in all.
We may pause here to point out a coincidence between
Scriptural and profane chronology. The embassy of
Merodach-baladan king of Babylon was produced partly
by the news of Hezekiah’s sickness and recovery,
and partly by the sign, relating to the sun, which had
been vouchsafed unto him®. This embassy, therefore,
it is morally certain would take place either in the
last half of B.C. 710, or the jirst half of B.C. 709.
Now the Merodach-baladan of Scripture is with great
reason supposed to be the Mardoc-empadus of Ptole-
my’s canon; the beginning of whose reign, according
to Dodwell’s edition of that canon®, fell out το Nabo-
nassari 27. B.C. 721, and the end ἄγε Nabonassari 39.
B. Ο. 709 : and as all the years in that scientific canon
begin with the first day of the same month, the Egyptian
Thoth, which answered Β. C.721 to Feb. 20. and B.C.
709 to Feb. 17, it is manifestly possible that he might
1 Supra, Appendix, Dissertation xi. 453. τῷ 2 Kings xx. 6. Isaiah xxxviii. 5.
nz Kings xx. 1—12. 2°Chron. xxxii. 24. 31. Isaiah xxxviii. 7,8. 22. ΧΧΧΙΧ. I.
© Dissertationes Cyprianice, Appendix, 84.
κι
500 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
have sent this embassy to Hezekiah, between the
Thoth, B.C. 710, and the Thoth, B.C. 709, though in |
the very last year of his reign.
Again, 1 of Manasseh. Nisan B. C. 695—694.
GP, isk see has προ kL: 641—640.
From the great length of the reign of Manasseh, it is
nothing improbable that he died an his fifty-fifth year,
or B.C. 641.
Hence 1 of Amon. Nisan B.C. 641—640.
D Hi. GUI LD, 640—639.
The violent death of Amon, in like manner, authorizes
the inference that the true length of his reign was not
two years complete: and we may suppose the first of
Josiah to bear date nominally from Nisan, but really
from about Tisri, B. C. 640. |
Hence 1 of Josiah. Nisan B. C. 640—639.
Bi HWA BALDOR 628—627.
ΒΡ: φρο a 623—622
iFrame weeey overs ῬΡΟΟΡΝ αν dah ae 610—609
The reign of Josiah certainly began before the jirst
month in the sacred year? ; and it certainly terminated
in spring; for it was at a time when Pharaoh-Necho
was taking the field to begin a march from Egypt
to the Euphrates’. We may reasonably infer, then,
that he died at the end of his nominal, but the middle
of his veal, thirty-first, about Nisan, B.C.609. From
an eclipse of the moon on the eleventh of March, B.C.
609, (vide the Table of Pingré,) we may conclude
that the first of Nisan would synchronise that year
with the beginning of the month of April; before, or
by which time the king of Egypt may well be sup-
posed to have set out on his expedition.
The three months of Jehoahaz, whom Jeremiah de-
p 2 Kings xxii. 3. xxiii. 23. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 8. xxxv. I. 19. q 2 Kings
xxiii. 29, 30. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20—24.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 501
signates by the name of Shallum"*, being dated from
the Nisan, would expire with the Thamuz, B.C. 609::
at which time it is possible Necho might be on his
return. The, first year of Jehoiakim will consequently
bear date nominally from Nisan, B.C. 609, but truly
from Thamuz, B.C.609. In support of this conclu-
sion there are various presumptive proofs.
I. Jeremiah xxxvi. 1. we have mention of the fourth
of Jehoiakim; and, 9. 22. directly after, of the ji/th,
and of the nenth month. The whole subject-matter
of the chapter is so connected as to lead to the infer-
ence that the command to write the roll was given to
Jeremiah, at the very end of the fourth of Jehoiakim’ ;
and consequently that the fourth of Jehoiakim did
truly expire not long before the nzv¢h month in the
sacred year.
II. The reason of the thing must imply that Jere-
miah xxxvi. is a later prophecy than Jeremiah xxv.
Now Jeremiah i. 2. and xxv. 1. 3. from the thirteenth
of Josiah, to this time in the fourth of Jehoiakim,
there were twenty-two years, and part of a twenty-
third. The thirteenth of Josiah began nominally with
the Nisan, truly with the Tisri, B.C.628. From
Nisan, B.C. 628, the twenty-second year was complete
Nisan, B.C. 606: and from Tisri, B.C. 628, it was so
in Tisri, B.C.606. If Jeremiah follows the former
date, the prophecy was delivered after Nasan, B.C.
606; if the latter, after 7%s77, Β. C. 606: but in either
case in the fourth of Jehoiakim; from which it seems
the most probable inference that the fourth of Jehoia-
kim began between Nisan and T?s7r7, B.C. 606: and,
consequently, his first between Nisan and T?sri, B.C.
609. Hence, as his predecessor reigned three months,
to all appearance immediately before him, it seems
r Jerem. xxii. 11. 8 Vide xxxvi. 1, 2, 6. 8,9. xlv.i.
Kk 3
502 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
‘equally obvious that és reign ended and Jehoiakim’s
began at an equal distance from both those months *.
Nisan B. C. 609—608.
Hence 1 of Jehoiakim.
ΟΣ restttecesetoteneder es 607— 606.
“ΔΕ ta Fh ἐιρ χι 606—605.
BGs. 1A. OHM ERs. BOS 605 —604.
G ....styoike awelsc ees 604—603.
Didi: pemidorcepen> eheciat smias cok 599—598.
Now that Jehoiakim did not reign eleven years com-
plete appears from this; that the fourth of Jehoiakim
was the jirst of Nebuchadnezzart—and the three
months, ten days, of Jehoiachin+ came within the
eighth". Now these synchronisms would hold good if
the jirst of Nebuchadnezzar began about Nisan B.C.
606: (for that would be truly in the ἐγ of Jehoiakim
medio or exeunte; and nine months or six of the fourth
of Jehoiakim would still come within the first of Nebu-
ehadnezzar:) and the death of Jehoiakim took place
in the ninth or tenth month of the Jewish year, at the
very end of B.C. 599: for then the last three months
of the eighth of Nebuchadnezzar, or the first three
months of B. C. 598, would be the three months of the
reign of Jehoiachin. And this conclusion may be con-
firmed as follows:
I. There is a fitness in placing the death of Jehoia-
kim in the nénth month of the Jewish year, because it
* It is possible, indeed, that
the death of Josiah, B. C. 609,
might happen towards the end,
rather than the beginning of the
spring quarter, in that year. In
this case the true date of the
accession of Jehoahaz might be
Thamuz, and that of Jehoiakim
Tisri, in the same year. And
this supposition will accord, on
t Jeremiah xxv. 1.
u 2 Kings xxiv. 8. 12.
the whole, much the best with
the preceding statements.
+ The statement at 2 Chron.
ΧΧΧΥΪ. 9. which makes Jehoia-
chin eight years old, when he
began to reign, must be cor-
rected by 2 Kings xxiv. 8.
which makes him ezghteen. See
also 1 Esdras i. 43.
2 Chron. xxxvi. 9.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 503
was in that month" that he committed the crime which
drew down upon him the sentence, fulfilled in the
manner of his death.
II. From 2 Kings xxv. 1, 2, 3, it is evident that the
reign of Zedekiah began between the fenth and the
fourth months in the Jewish year. Jeremiah xxviii.
1. also, allusion occurs to his fourth year and the fifth
month, and xxviii. 17, to the same year and the
seventh month.
III. The prophet Ezekiel was one of those who
appear to have been carried into captivity along with
Jehoiachin: the date, at least, which he invariably fol-
lows in all his predictions is the date of this captivity :
Vide:is1,2. vil. h,..xx).ds, XSive 1. xxv L χες, 1.17.
xxx. 20. xxxi. 1. xxxii. 1.17. xxxiii. 21. * xl. 1: in all
* With regard to the date
exhibited in this verse, vide
Dissertation xviii. vol. ii. page
140, 141.
If there is any exception to
the rule in question, it is fur-
nished apparently by the jirst
verse of the first chapter itself:
Now it came to pass in the thir-
lieth year, in the fourth month,
in the fifth day of the month.
If this verse labours under no
corruption of the numbers, the
next verse shews that the ¢hir-
tieth year, and fifth month, syn-
chronised with the fifth of Je-
hoiachin’s captivity, and the
same month: that is, with B.C.
594. and the month Ab in the
sacred year. In order to syn-
chronise with this time B.C.
594, the thirtieth year must be
referred to some corresponding
time B. C.623. Now B.C. 623.
was apparently the ezghieenth
of Josiah ; inwhich year (2 Kings
Xxli. 3. χα 2, 3. 23. 2 Chron.
xxxiv. 8. 29—33. xxxv. 19.) he
renewed the Mosaic covenant,
and celebrated the Passover, as
there recorded. I say, appa-
rently ; for the eighteenth of
Josiah did truly begin Tisri,
B.C. 623, and expire Tisri,
B. C. 622: which is too late for
the ἀρχὴ of the thirtieth year in
question. If that thirtieth year
was just complete, Ab, B. C.
594, it must have begun, Ab,
B.C. 624, which would be in
the sixteenth of Josiah exeunte :
if it was just begun, Ab, B. C.
594, it must have begun, Ab,
B.C. 623, in the seventeenth of
Josiah exeunte: but in no case
can it bear date in the eighteenth
of Josiah, except as referred
to its nominal ἀρχὴ, Nisan, B.C.
623.
It may perhaps be so referred,
x Jeremiah xxxvi. 9. 22. 29, 30. xxii. 18, 10.
K k 4
504 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
‘which instances while the years are referred to the
date of Jehoiachin’s captivity, the months are the
months of the sacred year. On this account, it seems
impossible to doubt that the j7s¢ month of the sacred
year, and the first month of the captivity, began and
proceeded together*. If so, the last month of the
sacred year synchronised with the last month of the
reign of Jehoiachin; and Jehoiachin began to reign
B. C.598, imeunte, and was made captive in the third
month of the same year, in the eghth of Nebuchad-
nezzar. The jirst year of Zedekiah and the ninth of
Nebuchadnezzar would thus begin and proceed toge-
ther, from Nisan, B. C. 598.
if the text is to be considered
sound, according to the opinion
of Usher; though I should ra-
ther understand it, even in that
case, of the age of Ezekiel when
he was called to the prophetical
office. Jerome (Operum i. 647,
648. Prefatio in Ezek.) so refers
it: though elsewhere, (111. 699.ad
principium, in Ezek. i.) he refers
it to the twelfth of Josias, quando
inventus est liber Deuteronomii
in Templo Dei. But the occur-
rence of this date here is a ma-
nifest anomaly, compared with
the rule which prevails every
where else: and if there were
any reason to doubt about the
integrity of the text, then I
should consider it by no means
unlikely that the mention of the
thirtieth year here arose out of the
allusion to the sixth year, vill. 1.
There might be some cause to
conclude from viii. 4. x. 15. 20.
22. xi. 24, 25. that the vision,
which begins to be recorded viii.
1, was directly consecutive upon
that recorded 1.1. Hence had
Ezekiel originally written, It
came to pass in the fourth
month, in the fifth day of the
‘Hence,
month, without any mention of
the year, some scribe might sup-
pose it was the fourth month of
the siath year: and make a mar.
ginal annotation accordingly. If
this once got into the text, its
corruption into the thirtieth
would be a still easier process.
I propose this opinion, however,
as a mere conjecture: but it is
some confirmation of it that
Ezekiel mentions another year,
verse 2, which is also referred
to the same date as every other
note of time subsequently ; and
therefore it is not likely that he
would mention a different one,
and such an one as has nothing
afterwards to resemble it, in the
verse immediately before.
* This conclusion is further
deducible from the testimony of
2 Chron. xxxvi. 10, “ And when
the year was expired,” &c. un-
derstood, according to its most
probable construction, of the sa-
cred year. For hence it would fol-
low demonstratively, that with
the end of the reign of Jehoi-
achin, one sacred year expired,
and with his captivity, another
began.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 505
1 of Zedekiah. 9 of Nebuchadnezzar. Nisan B. C. 598—597.
18. ai Hawi. ΤΉ ὙΠ 589—588.
BM fects RD: <a agulecguhastrmntivh- accereedotodisl 588—587.
Vide Jeremiah xxxii.1. and lii.12. But the temple
and Jerusalem were destroyed in the fifth month of
the sacred year, Ab, B.C. 588: and consequently, soon
after the beginning of the eleventh of Zedekiah, and
of the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar. The true date
of the destruction of Jerusalem then was Ab, B.C. 588:
and the fourteenth year from that destruction complete
would be Ab, B.C.574. The true date of Ezekiel’s
or Jehoiachin’s captivity was Nisan, B.C. 598: and
the twenty-fifth year from that date began, zm the
fourteenth from the other, Nisan, B.C.574: which is
the synchronism specified at Ezekiel xl. 1.
Having thus established the fact that the date of
the destruction of Jerusalem was truly the fifth month
in the sacred year, B. C. 588, I shall pause for the
sake of the following observations.
The testimony of Jeremiah has rendered it certain
that the fourth of Jehoiakim, which began Thamuz or
Tisri, B. C. 606, began in the jirst of Nebuchadnez-
zar: and the captivity of Jehoiachin, Adar, B. C. 598,
took place at the end of his ezghth. On this principle
the first of Nebuchadnezzar, according to Jeremiah, is
dated from Nisan, B.C. 606, and began in the third
of Jehoiakim medio or exeunte.
Now from the third of Jehoiakim it is that Daniel
dates the commencement of his own captivity’: that
is, the invasion of Judza by Nebuchadnezzar, which
ended in Daniel’s captivity, was made in the third of
Jehoiakim. If Nebuchadnezzar went up against Jeru-
salem between Nisan and Thamuz or Tisri, B. C. 606,
he would do this in the third of Jehoiakim; and if the
5.1.1,
506 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
- revelation, recorded Jeremiah xxv. was made in any
part of the rest of the year, it would still be made in the
fourth of Jehoiakim, and might be in the jirst of Ne-
buchadnezzar. On this point, then, the two testimo-
nies are at harmony together; and the common date
to which they refer being B. C. 606, then the fact that
Daniel’s captivity is dated from this time, and the
concurrent declaration of Jeremiah xxv. 11, 12, com-
pared also with 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21, demonstrate the
true beginning of the seventy years’ captivity to be
the first of Nebuchadnezzar, B.C.606. There were
two other captivities besides this, Jehoiachin’s or Eze-
kiel’s, B. C. 598, and Zedekiah’s, B. C. 588: the former
in the eighth, the latter in the nineteenth, of the king
of Babylon: besides three minor deportations, in the
seventh, the eighteenth, and the twenty-third, which
are summarily alluded to, Jeremiah 111. 28, 29, 30. But
that captivity, which would naturally be made the com-
᾿ mencement of the whole term of years assigned to its du-
ration, would be the first; and the time of this being
B.C. 606, the seventy years in question begin and pro-
ceed with B.C. 606. And this is the only date which
will accord to the fulfilment of prophecy; every allusion
of which to the duration of the captivity fixes it at
seventy years'; and authorizes us to expect that it
would be seventy years complete: which was actually
the case if it began B.C. 606, and expired B. C. 536:
but not upon any other supposition.
If, now, the first year of Daniel’s captivity began in
the third of Jehoiakim medio or exeunte, B.C. 606,
the fourth year of his captivity began in the szath of
Jehoiakim medio or exeunte, B.C. 603. And this
fourth year of Daniel’s captivity, as it is strongly im-
plied by Daniel i. 5. 18. ii. 1. either preceded, or at
t 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. Jeremiah xxix. 10. Daniel ix. 2.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 507
least coincided with the second of Nebuchadnezzar.
If so, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar coincided with
the third of the captivity of Daniel, and both with
B.C. 604. How then shall we reconcile this conclusion
to the testimony of Jeremiah, that the reign of Nebu-
chadnezzar began in B.C. 606? The two statements
are not inconsistent ; as may thus be proved.
I. There is just two years’ difference between them:
and two years is the difference between the length of
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, as it may be collected
from Scripture, and as it is stated by Berosus, by the
canon of Ptolemy, and by other ancient authorities.
For first, the siege of Tyre being just over in the
twenty-seventh year of the captivity", and the reduction
of Egypt being yet to come; we cannot place that re-
duction earlier than this very year, the twenty-seventh
of the captivity itself. Now the twenty-seventh of the
captivity answers to the thirty-fifth of Nebuchadnez-
zar. Again, the return to Babylon, and the year’s in-
terval between that return and the commencement of
Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years’ madness’, must have
occupied at least to the end of his thirty-sixth. The first
of his seven years of madness would consequently not
be earlier than his thirty-seventh; nor the last than
his forty-third: after which, as it may be concluded
from Dan. iv. 34—37. there could not be less than one
or two years more to his death. On this principle the
whole length of his reign would be forty-four or forty-
five years at least; which the abovementioned au-
thorities however state only at forty-three *.
* The length of the reign of _ picii Severi Sacre Historiz, ii. 7.
Nebuchadnezzar was actually It is there observed of Nebu-
stated at forty-five years by an chadnezzar; Hic post devi-
ancient author, referred to, Sul- ctum, ut supra diximus,Sedechi-
u Ezek. xxix. 17, 18. V Daniel iv. 1—16. 23. 25, 26, 28, 29. 31, 32.
508 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
II. It is presumptively to be inferred from Berosus ¥
that, when Nebuchadnezzar was placed at the head of
his father’s armies, he was also associated with him in
the empire; and this might manifestly be about the
time when he invaded Judza, and took Circesium from
Pharaoh-Necho, both in the fourth of Jehoiachim *,
B.C. 606. The same authority shews that this ap-
pointment was not long before his father’s death.
III. A writer like Jeremiah, composing in Judea,
would naturally date the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
from this time, if it was then that he first became con-
nected with the affairs of Judzea; while an historian like
Daniel, writing at Babylon, equally naturally would
date it from no other time but that of his father’s
death.
IV. The canon of Ptolemy confirms the date of
Daniel; and the duration of the captivity confirms
that of Jeremiah. The first year of the captivity was
the first of Nebuchadnezzar, and the year of the re-
turn was the first of Cyrus. From the first of Cyrus,
am, quem captivum Babylonem
transtulit, regnasse traditur an-
nos Vi. et XX. quanquam id non
in Sacra historia scriptum inve-
nerim. sed forte accidit, ut dum
multa evolverem, annotationem
hance jam interpolato per etatem
libello, sine authoris nomine, re-
perirem, in quo regum Baby-
loniorum tempora contineban-
tur, quam pretereundam non
putavi. siquidem et Chronicis
consentiret, et ita illius nobis
ratio quadraret, ut per ordinem
regum, quorum tempora conti-
nebat, usque in primum Cyri
regis annum, LXX. annos (tot
enim per Sacram historiam, a
captivitate usque ad Cyrum fu-
isse referuntur) impleret. If we
add to these twenty-six years of
Nebuchadnezzar, after the cap-
ture of Zedekiah, the eighteen
which he had reigned before it,
2 Kings xxv. 8, the sum total is
forty-five current, ποῦ complete,
for the whole length of his reign.
What the authority was, in
which Sulpicius found this state-
ment, further than that it was
_probably an ancient chronicle,
does not appear. Megasthenes
is said to have asserted the same
thing ; though I do not find the
passage in his extant fragments,
as preserved by Eusebius, Syn-
cellus, or others.
w Josephus Ant. x. xi. i. Contra Apionem i. 19, 20. Syncellus, i. 416. 1. g—
417.1. το. x Jeremiah xlvi. 2.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 509
B. C. 536, to the first of Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 606,
there was just the necessary interval of seventy years
complete ; but from the same time to B.C. 604, there
was not more than one of sixty-eight.
V. According to the canon, the reign of Evil-mero-
dach, who succeeded to Nebuchadnezzar, began B. C.
561. According to Jeremiah, lii. 31. and 2 Kings
xxv. 27, it began in the ¢hirty-seventh year of the cap-
tivity of Jeconiah. The ¢hirty-seventh year of the
captivity of Jeconiah was consequently the last year of
Nebuchadnezzar; and that it would be, if the first of
the former was the ninth of the latter, and he reigned
forty-five years in all. Now the first year of the cap-
tivity beginning Nisan, B.C. 598, the thirty-seventh
year expired Adar, B.C. 561. It was in this month,
and on the ¢wenty-fifth or the twenty-seventh day of
the month, that Jeconiah was released from prison ;
and consequently, it was in this month, or before it,
that Evil-merodach ascended the throne *. A reign of
forty-five years beginning B.C. 606, is exactly tanta-
mount to a reign of forty-three beginning B.C. 604;
for then they both terminate at the same time B. C.
561.
VI. According to the book of Kings, and of Jeremiah,
to the canon of Ptolemy, and to Berosus, and to other
* The testimony of the canon
of Ptolemy accords to this sup-
position : the first Thoth of Evil-
merodach, according to this
canon, fell upon January 11:
which implies that the érue be-
ginning of his reign might be
after that date, but could not be
before it. Now it may be proved
from Pingré that the first of
Adar, B. C. 561, would not fall
earlier than the beginning of
February: nor consequently the
25th or 27th earlier than the
end: at which time Evil-mero-
dach might be just come to the
throne.
In like manner, the first Thoth
of Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 604,
fell upon January 21: so that
his reign, according to the canon,
began after that “day at least:
which agrees exactly to our con-
clusion respecting its true begin-
ning; viz. Nisan in the sacred
year,
510 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
- ancient authorities’, the successor of Nebuchadnezzar
was Evil-merodach; according to the book of Daniel,
it was apparently Belshazzar. The difference of name
constitutes no difficulty; and each of these statements
is consistent with the other, if Belshazzar was the same
with Evil-merodach: and this I believe to be the case.
For first, it is predicted, Jeremiah xxvii.'7. (2 Chron.
xxxvi. 20.) that All nations should serve Nebuchadnez-
zar, and his son and his son's son, that is, his grandson*.
But it is not predicted they should serve any more of his
family. Now Nebuchadnezzar had no children of whom
we read, except his son Evil-merodach, and a daugh-
ter married to Neriglissar. The fruit of this marriage
was a son, called Laborosoarchod, and consequently a
grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. All these were kings
after Nebuchadnezzar in their turns; first Evil-mero-
dach, then Neriglissar, and lastly, Laborosoarchod.
But Nabonadius, the successor of Laborosoarchod, as
it is implied by Berosus and expressly mentioned by
* There are commentators
who apply Isaiah xiv. 29. to the
same three persons; but in my
opinion very improperly: since
it is much more probable that
the serpent’s root denotes Tig-
lath-pileser ; the cockatrice,Shal-
maneser; and the jfery-flying
serpent, Sennacherib: all of
whom, from the time denoted by
2 Kings xv. 29. in the twentieth
of Pekah, B.C. 737, to the de-
feat of Sennacherib, Β. C. 710,
that is, for a period of twenty-
seven years, were successively
scourges of Palesiina, and the
neighbouring regions. The date
of this prophecy was B.C. 725,
or 724, the year of the death of
Ahaz. If Tiglath-pileser died
about this time, the first of Shal-
maneser might bear date from
the same: and that Shalmaneser
was the son of Tiglath-pileser is
just as probable as, from the
testimony of Tobit, i. 15, that
Sennacherib was the son of Shal-
maneser is certain. Nothing
more is recorded of Shalmaneser,
except that after his conquest of
Samaria he besieged Tyre for
five years, though he did not re-
duce it.—Ant. Jud. ix. xiv. 2.
There may be proof then, that
he was reigning so late as B. C.
713, but no proof that he was
reigning later.
y Megasthenes, Alexander Polyhistor, and Abydenus, apud Syncellum, i. 427.
1, 4. et seqq. Eusebius, Evangelica Preparatio, ix. cap. 39, 40, 41. Chronicon Ar-
meno-Latinum, Pars i@. 44, 45. 53—60. Cf. Josephus, Ant. x. xi. 2.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 511
Megasthenes or Abydenus’”, was no relation of Nebu-
chadnezzar’s whatever. We may take it for granted
then, that Belshazzar was one of the former; either
Evil-merodach, Neriglissar, or Laborosoarchod: but
that he was not Nabonadius.
Secondly, according to Berosus, the reign of Laboro-
soarchod was a reign of only nine months ; and Berosus
is confirmed by the canon, which omits this reign alto-
gether because it was less than a year. This is suffi-
cient to prove that Belshazzar was not Laborosoar-
chod: for the reign of Belshazzar extended into his
third year at least ἃ, |
Thirdly, according to Berosus, and our other au-
thorities, Evil-merodach himself was assassinated by
Neriglissar—but Neriglissar, so far as appears to the
contrary, died a natural death. Now, Dan. v. 30, Bel-
shazzar also was certainly assassinated: whence he
might be Evil-merodach, but he could not be Neriglissar.
Besides which, Dan. v. 2. 11. 13. 18. 22, Belshazzar
is so called the son of Nebuchadnezzar, as seems to
leave no doubt that he was truly and properly such:
and this also is true of Evil-merodach, but neither of
Laborosoarchod nor of Neriglissar.
The Book of Baruch, which some commentators con-
sider authentic, and which, even if apocryphal, is never-
theless of great antiquity; speaks of Balthasar, or
Belshazzar, as standing in no other relation; and as
born before the fifth of Jehoiachin’s captivity itself: a
supposition which we shall see hereafter is by no means
improbable. ch. i. 2. 11, 12.
The captivity of the Jews was still a recent event
at the very time of his death”: which also might be
true of Evil-merodach.
The reign of Evil-merodach, according to the canon
z Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica, ix. cap. 41. 457. B. Chronicon Armeno-
Latinum, Pars i. 60. a Dan, vii. 1. viii. 1. b v. 13.
512 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
-of Ptolemy, must have lasted for two years complete,
at least; and it has been seen from Dan. vii. 1. viii. 1.
that the reign of Belshazzar extended into his third
year; but there is no proof that it extended beyond it.
The death of Belshazzar took place in the very
midst of a festive celebrity: and that is just such a
death as might be the natural effect of a conspiracy
against his life, formed and executed by a confidential
person, like Neriglissar, his sister’s husband.
These reasons appear to me almost demonstrative
that Belshazzar was really Evil-merodach: between
whose death, and the capture of Babylon by the Medes
and Persians, there were consequently three interme-
diate reigns, Neriglissar’s, Laborosoarchod’s, and Nabo-
nadius’s. What, then, shall we say to the testimony of
Daniel, v. 30, 31, which tells us that Darius the Mede
took the kingdom, in the very next verse to that which
mentions the death of Belshazzar? My answer is,
though it is a truth which has been overlooked by
chronologers and commentators, that Dan. v. 30, 31,
affirms no connection between the death of Belshazzar
and the accession of Darius—that they were not of ne-
cessity consecutive events—and that it may be proved
from Daniel himself, that there was in reality a twenty-
one years interval between them.
I ground this assertion on Daniel x. 13: But the
prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and
twenty days. It seems to me clear from xi. 1. ix. 1,
that these twenty-one days of opposition expired in the
Jirst of Darius: and from ix. 21. viii. 1, 2. 16, 17, that
they began in the third of Belshazzar: and that they
are figuratively intended for the interval which, not-
withstanding the death of Belshazzar* in the third
year of his reign, and the declaration®, that his king-
c ν. 30. d ν, 28.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 513
dom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians,
which immediately preceded his death, was yet to be
interposed before the accession of the first Medo-Per-
sian monarch.
There can be no question that the word of prophecy
had coupled the deliverance of the Jews with the dis-
solution of the Babylonian monarchy, and the com-
mencement of the Medo-Persian: and this connection
is very plainly implied by Daniel ix. 1,2. It is equally
indisputable that, in resentment of the profane impiety
of Belshazzar, evinced at his feast, this dissolu-
tion was predicted on the very night of his death.
The very night of his death then seemed to be fixed
as the point of time whence the deliverance of the
Jews was to begin. But there was to be in reality a
certain intermediate interval; which, being so far a
delay of the downfall of the Babylonian monarchy,
was so far a delay of the promised deliverance of the
Jews. This delay is ascribed to the opposition of a
Power adverse to the counsels of God, and interested
in opposing the liberation of the Jews: which Power
is called the Prince of the kingdom of Persia. This
Prince of the kingdom of Persia is clearly described as
a real being and a personal agent, who must conse-
quently be capable of a real agency and a personal part
of some kind or other; and whatever opinion we may
form of the nature of the agent himself, the part
ascribed to him is plainly implied to be adverse to the
counsels of God for the good of his people in particu-
lar. The Prince of Grecia is similarly alluded to at
x. 20: and as Persia or Grecia is thus supposed to
have its peculiar Prince, so are the Jews described as
having theirs’ in the person of Michael, x. 13. 21. xii.
1: and as the former are supposed to thwart or resist
the dispensations of Providence in behalf of the Jews,
VOL. III. ΕἸ
514 Appendix, Dissertation Twelfth.
‘so is the latter supposed to promote or to favour
them.
I know not what other meaning but this can be
attached to the words in question. As to supposing
that the twenty-one days relate to the interval between
the commencement of the rebuilding of the temple, B.C.
535, and its completion even B.C. 515, this was an
interval of twenty prophetical days only, not of fwenty-
one ; and though it had been one of twenty-one, it would
not have been an interval of opposition, for all that
length of time, on the part of the Persians, but upon the
whole, of assistance and encouragement. The progress
of the work might be suspended during the reign of
Cambyses; but that could be only for seven or eight
years in all: the remaining thirteen, instead of years
of opposition, were years of protection and support.
On the other hand, it is a remarkable coincidence, and
abundantly sufficient to confirm our interpretation of the
text, that, according to the canon of Ptolemy, the united
reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-merodach, forty-
five years in all, beginning B.C. 604, expired B.C.
559: and the united reigns of Neriglissar and Nabo-
nadius, exactly twenty-one years together, beginning
B.C. 559, expired B.C. 538, in the very year which
the canon ascribes to the first of Cyrus: but which is
truly to be understood of the first of Darius. For the
canon ascribes mine years to Cyrus, dated from the
close of the Babylonian dynasty; whereas the true
length of his reign was seven: a difference easily ac-
counted for, if Darius reigned two years independent
of Cyrus, which are nevertheless reckoned into his
reign *. The testimony of Daniel is implicitly in
* Eusebius (Chronicon Arme- beginning with that of Nabopo-
no-Latinum, Parsi. 44,45) gives _ lassar, or as hecalls him, Sardana-
the lengths of these severalreigns, _ pallus, down to Cyrus, from Ale-
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 515
favour of this supposition; for he mentions nowhere
any more than the first year of Darius; though he
mentions the first and the third of Cyrus*—and as
Darius was sixty-two years old when he came to the
throne, it is manifestly possible that he might die at
the end of his second year; when he would be sixty-
three or sixty-four *.
In support of the same interpretation we may fur-
ther reason as follows :
I. The feast, at which Belshazzar was slain, was
manifestly in the midst of peace’. This might be the
case B. C. 559, but could not B.C. 538. And though
it may be true, as Herodotus attests ὃ, that the city
was surprised by the Persians while some public cele-
brity was going on, (which was most probably the
festival called Sacea; celebrated, according to Be-
rosus " and perhaps to Ctesias, for five days, from the
sixteenth to the twentieth of the month Lous,) yet
there is nothing in the whole of Jeremiah 1. and li.
though devoted almost exclusively to this topic of the
capture of Babylon, which authorizes the inference that
it would be taken under such circumstances as these of
Belshazzar’s feast.
II. The queen-mother, or wife of Nebuchadnezzar,
was still living, and the second ruler in the kingdomi.
This also might be true, B.C. 559, only two years
after the death of her husband; but it is highly im-
xander Polyhistor after Berosus
dach was regent, during his fa-
—all agreeably to our state-
ther’s illness, seven years, be-
ments ; excepting that, relating
to the reign of Evil-merodach, to
which he assigns twelve years
instead of three: and even this
may be explained, if Evil-mero-
© ix. 1c. Xi). 1. 1s 38,
h Atheneus, xiv. 44.
f Dan. v. 1—4. 23. 30.
-i Dan. v. 7. 10, 11. 16. 29.
eame sole king éwo years after,
and died in his third year.
* For some further observa-
tions on Daniel x. 13, see the
next Dissertation.
ὃ i, 191.
ee ἀν.
516 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
_ probable, B. C. 538, as much as twenty-one years
later.
III. If Darius succeeded directly to’ Belshazzar,
whether B.C. 559 or B. C. 538, the Book of Daniel is
placed in opposition to Berosus, Megasthenes, Abyde-
nus, and others; who affirm that the reigning king, at
the time of the conquest of Babylon, was not killed—
but survived the contest, and was well treated by the
Persians. All this might be true of Nabonadius; but
Daniel affirms only the fate of Belshazzar. Jeremiah
too, in the chapters referred to above, implicitly agrees
with the historians in question: especially li. 31, 32:
One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger
to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his
city is taken at one end, And that the passages are
stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and
the men of war are affrighted. For while all this very
plainly describes in what way the city would be taken,
and is remarkably in unison with the event, yet it
gives no reason whatever to suppose that the king of
Babylon himself would be slain.
IV. The various accounts of the conquest in ques-
tion, as given respectively by Herodotus, Berosus, Me-
gasthenes, Abydenus, or Xenophon, however much
they may differ from each other, will be all alike con-
sistent with the Book of Daniel—whose testimony is
committed in favour of none of them more than of an-
other.
V. Daniel i. 1 and i. 21 Jaid together imply that,
as the third of Jehoiakim was the true beginning, so
the jirst of Cyrus was the true end of the captivity.
For Daniel certainly survived until the third of Cy-
rus‘; not merely until the first: nor would it be said
that he continued only to the first of Cyrus, if it had
k x, I.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 517
not been intended to imply thereby that he continued
all through the captivity; he saw its beginning in the
third of Jehoiakim, and he saw its end in the first of
Cyrus. Besides, it is a just inference from ix. 1, 2.
that the seventy years were ready to be accomplished,
but not necessarily that they were accomplished, in
the jirst of Darius: and vi. 10. further confirms the
inference; for this also was most probably in the first
of Darius.
VI. There is no proof at viii. 1,2. that Daniel was
not still in Babylon in the third of Belshazzar; for it
was in vision only that he was then at Shushan. But
x. 1.4. in the third of Cyrus he was no longer at Ba-
bylon ; but somewhere upon the Tigris.
VII. Though the Jews might have returned from
captivity in the first of Cyrus, B.C. 536, and Daniel
might be still alive in his therd, B.C. 534, yet it is
probable that he was then nenety years old: and this
is a sufficient reason why he should not have accom-
panied them on their return; especially if he was in
Persia, and they went up from Babylon—in the first
of Cyrus.
VIII. Jeremiah xxvii. 7. already quoted, is no ob-
jection: for it does not necessarily imply that the
Babylonian dynasty would expire upon the death of
Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. The very time of his
land might not be come then; nor was so in fact until
the close of the reign of Nabonadius. Still less of an
objection is it that the Book of Daniel itself gives no
intimation of any interval between the death of Bel-
shazzar, and the accession of Darius. That book is
no regular history; but touches only herve and there
on contemporary events: and that too as more con-
nected with the ceconomy of the divine dispensations,
than with the history of the reigning princes. The
L13
518 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
‘story of Belshazzar is an isolated narrative; the sole
end of which is to shew by what a remarkable inter-
position of penal Providence his impiety and profane-
ness were checked and resented at their very height.
Nor does it appear that, after the ast year of Belshazzar,
any additional revelations were vouchsafed to Daniel
before the first of Darius. The years of opposition to
the counsels of God in behalf of the Jews, which began
in the one and ended in the other, were years of
intermission also in the communications made to the
Prophet.
IX. If with Josephus‘, and the plurality of the
modern interpreters of Scripture, we are at liberty to
assume that Darius the Mede* in the Book of Daniel
is the same person with Cyaxares in the Cyropzedia of
Xenophon, then the age of Darius, B.C. 538, is the
age of Cyaxares. Daniel v. 31. describes this age as
not quite sixty-two, but about it; the similarity of
which description to St. Luke’s of the age of our Lord
at his baptism, as not quite, but about thirty, must be
obvious. I infer then that the meaning of this descrip-
tion is the same with that of St. Luke’s—viz. that
Darius, B.C. 538, was not of the full age of sixty-two ;
* It appears to me that Abyde-
nus (apud Eusebium, Chronicon
Armeno-Lat. i. 61.) recognises
this Darius: for speaking of Na-
bonadius, the last king of Baby-
lon, he says, Cui Cyrus, Baby-
lone capta, Carmaniez principa-
tum dedit: Darius rex de re-
gione depulit aliquantulum. We
can scarcely understand this al-
lusion of Darius Hystaspis. It
must be meant, therefore, of
the Darius of Daniel. Jerome,
Operum iii. 1091. ad medium, in
Dan v. observes, that not Xeno-
phon only, but Pompeius Tro-
gus, and, Multi alii qui barbaras
scripsere historias, attested that
Cyrus had an uncle by the mo-
ther’s side, who, consequently,
might be Darius the Mede. Po-
lychronius, an ancient Christian
commentator on Daniel viii.
calls Darius, who with Cyrus re-
duced Babylon, Cyaxares: Scri-
ptorum Deperditorum Vaticana
Collectio, ii. 131. F.
1 Ant. Jud. x. xi. 4.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 519
but something less. The same thing therefore will
_ hold good of Cyaxares: whose age, B.C. 538, being
more than sixty-one, but less than sexty-two, complete,
it follows, that the year of his birth was B.C. 600.
It will considerably strengthen all our preceding con-
clusions, if it can be rendered probable that Cyaxa-
res was actually born about that time.
Now, Daniel ix. 1. Darius the Mede is further de-
scribed as the son of Ahasuerus; and if Darius was
Cyaxares, Ahasuerus the father of Darius was As-
_ tyages the father of Cyaxares. The name of Aha-
suerus, or Assuerus, occurs in the Book of Tobit™;
and the Book of Tobit, with respect to the facts of
contemporary history, contains, in my opinion, so
many proofs of its own authenticity, that I shall not
hesitate to appeal to its testimony. The name of
Ahasuerus is there coupled with the name of Nabu-
chodonosor, or Nebuchadnezzar; and both in conjunc-
tion are connected with the mention of the destruction
of Nineve.
The time of the destruction of Nineve is presump-
tively to be determined by the age of Tobit. Tobit
was fifty-eight years old, which we are at liberty to
assume as equivalent to fifty-seven complete, when he
was deprived of his sight": and he was deprived of
his sight either in the last year of Sennacherib, or in
the first year of Esarhaddon (Sarchedonus)°. Both
these years would coincide with B.C.709: for the
defeat of Sennacherib has been proved to have hap-
pened B.C.710; and his death was ultimately the
consequence of that defeat; being due to the cruelties
which, upon his return home, he began to exercise
partly on the Jews, in revenge for his defeat, and
partly on his subjects generally. The Book of Tobit
m xiv. 15. n xiv. 2. Oi. 21. 22. li. I—IQ.
L14
520 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
‘supposes him to have died in less than two months
after the time that the life of Tobit became endangered.
The year of the death of Sennacherib may therefore
be confidently assumed as either B.C. 710, exeunte, or
B.C. 709, eneunte. The first year of Esarhaddon con-
sequently began either B.C. 710, exeunte, or B.C.
709, eneunte ; and it agrees with this conclusion, that
Tobit, who returned home soon after his accession, re-
turned before the Pentecost in that year?. This could
not be the Pentecost of B.C. 710 ; but it might be that
of B.C.'709. On this day it was that he lost his sight4.
Let us assume, then, that Tobit was fifty-seven com-
plete before the Pentecost of B.C. 709: he would be
one hundred and fifty-seven complete, or in current
language one hundred and fifty-eight years old, before
the same time, B.C. 609. It appears from the narra-
tive that he both died himself and was buried in
Nineve'; and that Tobias departed thence into Media,
only after each of those events. The siege of Nineve,
then, was not yet begun when Tobit died and was
buried, and when Tobias migrated to Media. But it
might be begun as soon after these two things as
we please: and if both had taken place before the
Pentecost of B.C. 609, the siege of Nineve might be
begun even in the same year; provided only it began
after them.
Now according to Diodorus Siculus, who copied his
accounts from Ctesias, the siege of Nineve lasted for
two years, and part of a third’. He tells us also that its
capture was due to a great inundation of the river Ku-
phrates, on whose banks it was situated, which threw
down a considerable portion of its walls: and this inun-
dation was the effect of long and continued rains. If that
account be true, the time of the capture was the time
Pi. Sati.‘ 22 ᾳ 1]. 9; 10. F xiv. 10, II, 12. $ li. 27.
Chronology of the Kingdems of Judah and Israel. 521
of one of the rainy seasons—either the autumnal, or
the vernal—and the latter is both as possible and as
probable as the former. Hence if with most chro-
nologers we assume that Nineve was taken and de-
stroyed B.C. 606, it was taken and destroyed B.C.
606, in the spring quarter of the year: which if the
siege had begun, B.C. 609, about midsummer, would
be actually when two years, and nine or ten months
of a third, were past.
Now B.C. 606, is the very year in which, according
to the Book of Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar must have
begun to reign; and only two years before B.C. 604,
in which, according to Ptolemy, his father Nabopo-
lassar must have died. The old king, before his
death, had already given up to his son the command
of his armies, and the care of all military operations ;
and the testimony of Scripture shews that Nebuchad-
nezzar was actually in possession of that authority as
early as the third of Jehoiakim, B.C. 606. ineunte.
There is not the least reason then to suppose that he
did not command at the siege of Nineve; nor that
Nabuchodonosor in the Book of Tobit is not the actual
person who bore that name, and not Nabopolassar his
father. It confirms these conclusions that B.C. 609,
about spring or midsummer, was the time of the expedi-
tion of Pharaoh-Necho to the Euphrates; (for that ex-
pedition might be connected with the siege of Nineve,
or intended to cooperate with the Assyrians against the
Babylonians ;) and that the fourth of Jehoiakim B. C.
606, after midsummer at least, was the time when
Nebuchadnezzar defeated him, and took Circesium
from him. The one of these events might be before
or during the siege of Nineve—the other would ne-
cessarily be after it. It confirms them also that B.C.
606. is considered in some sense the first of Nebuchad-
522 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
_nezzar: for he was probably associated in the empire
in consequence of his success against Nineve. It is a
similar argument that the same year was the first in
which he appears to have had any thing to do with
Judea; for it is not to be supposed the Babylonian
arms would have been carried as far as that country,
so much more remote from home, before the reduction
of Nineve.
On this principle, it was strictly Nebuchadnezzar,
who was contemporary with Astyages or Ahasuerus ;
and they were both of them engaged at the same time
on the siege of Nineve; the one in behalf of his father
Nabopolassar, and the other, as we may presume, in-
stead of his father Cyaxares. The first of these facts
is not inconsistent with the testimony of Alexander
Polyhistort; and the latter still less so with that of
Herodotus"; who makes Nineve to have been taken
zm the reign of Cyaxares it is true, but not necessarily
by Cyaxares: and it is just as probable that, at the
time of the reduction of Nineve, Cyaxares was an old
man, and incapable of any longer active exertion in
war, as that Nabopolassar was so.
The capture of Nineve, according to this historian,
did not take place until after the expulsion of the Scy-
thians; whose invasion of Asia, followed by twenty-
eight years’ ’ possession of it, occurred in the reign of
Cyaxares. If the beginning of the Median dynasty is
deduced from B.C. 710, at which time, in consequence
of the severe blow to the Assyrian empire inflicted by
the miraculous discomfiture of Sennacherib, the Medes
are most reasonably supposed to have shaken off the
yoke, the reign of Cyaxares, according to Herodotus ”,
t Apud Syncellum, i. 396. 1. 1. sqq. Cf. Eusebius, Chronicon Armeno-Lat.
Pars ia. 44. and Preparatio Evangelica, ix. 39. Ex Eupolemo: whence it appears,
that Astyages, called there Astibares, was acting as the ally of Nebuchadnezzar, at
a time which must have coincided with B. C. 606 or 598. u i, 106.
Υ i. 106. iv. 1. Ww i. 102.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 523
began seventy-three or seventy-four years afterwards,
B.C. 637, or 636. The irruption of the Scythians then
did not take place before B.C. 637, or 636. But the
same irruption took place in the reign of Ardys, con-
temporary king of Lydia”; and if we reckon back-
wards from the last year of Creesus*, B. C. 546, the
reign of Ardys expired eighty-two or eighty-three
years previously, B. C. 628, or 629. The irruption of
the Scythians, then, could not have taken place later
than B.C. 628: nor earlier than B.C. 637. But it
took place when Cyaxares was besieging Nineve, in
revenge for the death of his father Phraortes ** ; which
renders it probable that it actually took place in B.C.
636. Hence, if B. Ὁ. 636. was the jirst year of their
twenty-eight years’ possession of Asia, B. C. 609. was
the last. The siege of Nineve, then, though begun in
B. C. 609, might still be begun after they had been
dispossessed.
Now if the reign of Cyaxares began B.C. 637, B.C.
609. was his ¢wenty-ninth year; and as he reigned
only for eleven years longer, or forty years in all¥, it
is not improbable that he was an old man, and already
disqualified for military service, B.C. 609; but that
Astyages was a young man, in the prime and vigour
of his age. The same things are true of Nabopolassar
and of Nebuchadnezzar respectively.
On this supposition Astyages and Nebuchadnezzar
were not merely contemporaries, but in point of age
very probably upon a par. A son of Astyages then
would very probably be on a par with a son of Nebu-
chadnezzar ; that is, the age of Cyaxares, at the time of
the death of Nebuchadnezzar, might approximate to
that of Evil-merodach. It confirms this presumption
that they were cousins; for the queen of Nebuchad-
W Herodotus, i. 15. x i. 86. 16. 25. XX i. 103. y i. 106.
524 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
.nezzar, according to Alexander Polyhistor’, was a
daughter of Astyages, or rather of Cyaxares, call-
ed Amyhea*; and, according to Berosus*, was cer-
tainly a Median princess. Now as Nebuchadnez-
zar reigned forty-three years, dated from B.C. 604;
and as he was married to Amyhea, according to Poly-
histor, even before his father’s death, the age of Evil-
merodach at the time of his accession, B. C. 561, was
probably not less than forty. The same thing might
be true of Cyaxares; who being about forty, B.C. 561,
would be about sixty-two or sixty-three, B.C. 538.
But his age may be still further limited.
Aryenis, the daughter of Alyattes, king of Lydia, was
given in marriage to Astyages the son of Cyaxares®, at
the end of the war between those kings. This war could
not have begun before B. C. 616, or 615, the first of
Alyattes on the one hand, nor before B.C. 609, the year
of the expulsion of the Scythians, on the other : nor, if
the siege of Nineve was truly begun B.C. 609, before,
perhaps, B.C. 606, when the siege was brought to a
close. But it might have begun in B. C. 606, or B.C.
605: whence, as it lasted six years, its last would be
B.C. 601, or B.C. 600. This last year is memorable
as having been the year of the eclipse of Thales; and
by turning to the Table of Pingre, both B.C. 601, and
B.C. 600. may be seen to be distinguished by remark-
able eclipses of the sun; but especially B.C. 601, when
* The name of this princess,
according to Eusebius, (Chroni-
con Armeno-Latinum, i. 44. 54.)
on the authority both of Ale-
xander Polyhistor, and of Abyde-
it is true, make her the daughter
of Astyages, as well as the wife
of Nebuchadnezzar; and they
all suppose the siege or destruc-
tion of Nineveh to have coin-
nus, was Amyhea. Syncellus also
(1.396. 1.2.) calls her Amyite, after
Abydenus. All these authorities,
z Apud Syncellum et Eusebium, Jocis citatis.
phus, Contra Apionem, i.19. Cf. Diodorus Sic. ii. 10.
cided with the time of her mar-
riage to him. But she was truly
the sister of Astyages.
a Syncellus, i. 418. 1. 5. Jose-
» Herodotus, i. 74.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, 525
there was an eclipse on September 20. at nine in the
morning, central, and visible all over Asia. It is very
possible, then, that this was the eclipse predicted by
Thales; and, consequently, that B. C. 601, was the
close of the Medo-Lydian war, and the year when As-
tyages was married to Aryenis. If Cyaxares was the
offspring of this match, his birth might take place
B.C. 600, either before or after the month of Sep-
tember in that year. On this principle, if Babylon
was taken at the period of the Sacea, sometime in the
month of June or July, B. C. 538, and Darius’ reign
at Babylon bore date from the time of that capture,
his reign might begin a little before the occurrence of
his sixty-second birthday; when he would be natu-
rally said to be about sixty-two years old; as much
more than sixty-one; but not quite sixty-two. Nor
would this commencement of his reign be at variance
with the canon of Ptolemy. The jirst Thoth of Da-
rius, according to this canon, bears date January 5;
that is, his reign began on, or after, January 5, but
not before it. And this would be true though it began
even six months later.
In like manner, Croesus the son of Alyattes was
thirty-five years old°, when he came to the throne of
Lydia; whence, if we place the beginning of his reign
B. C. 560, he was thirty-five years old B.C. 560, and
born B. C. 595. On this supposition he was five years
younger than Cyaxares; but not more. According to
Dino, the Persian historian‘, Cyrus also began to reign
at forty—and died at seventy. Nor is this an impro-
bable statement; for Xenophon likewise® makes him
an old man at the time of his seventh and last return
to Persia, which coincided with the seventh year of
his reign, dated from the capture of Babylon—B. C.
¢ Herodotus, 1. 26. - 4 Cicero, De Divinatione, i.23. © Cyropzdia, viii. 7. §. 1.
526 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
- 529, or 530. If Cyrus was seventy, B. C. 529, or 530,
he was sixty-one or sixty-two, B. C. 538, and one year
younger than Cyaxares, or of the same age with him.
Now all this is possible—or rather it is even probable.
I see no reason whatever why each of these persons,
Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, Cyaxares,
the son of Astyages, Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, and
Croesus, the son of Alyattes, as they were all obviously
contemporaries, and all began to reign, Evil-merodach
in Babylon, Cyaxares in Media, Cyrus in Persia, and
Croesus in Lydia, almost at the same time, the earliest
not before B. C. 562, and the latest not later than B.C.
559—should not have been strictly ὁμήλικες, or nearly
of an equal age. Their history is blended together,
at a time when they must have been arrived at an age
of maturity, and either had, or might have, children ar-
rived at the same age also; particularly that of Croesus’
and Cyrus. With regard to the assumed date of the
birth of the latter, it requires no other supposition
than that Mandane, the mother of Cyrus, was married
to Cambyses, about the same time when Astyages was
married to Aryenis; in other words, that Astyages,
when married to Aryenis, was old enough to have a
daughter of a marriageable age. This age in the East
is as early as fourteen or fifteen; and if Astyages was
thirty years old at the siege of Nineve, B.C. 609, he
might have a daughter fourteen or fifteen years old,
B. C. 600, or 599. It does not appear to have been
known to Herodotus that he had any male issue ; or any
other daughter but Mandane: and if I may advance a
conjecture, I should be inclined to think she was his
only child before his marriage to Aryenis; and that
she was not espoused to Cambyses until after the birth
of Cyaxares. On this principle, if Cyaxares was born
B. C. 600, Cyrus might be born B.C. 599, but not
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 527
before; and if he was born then, he would be seventy,
B.C. 529. !
We might now conclude this review of the Chronology
of the kingdoms of Judah or of Israel, from the first
of Solomon to the destruction of the temple; but there
is still so remarkable a text, Ezekiel iv. 5, 6, which
appears to me to relate to this subject, that for the
sake of considering it we will still dwell somewhat
longer upon it.
For I have laid upon thee the years of their ini-
quity, according to the number of the days, three
hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the ini-
quity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast ac-
complished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou
shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty
days. I have appointed thee each day for a year.
Three. hundred and ninety days plus forty days
amount, on the whole, to four hundred and thirty
days: which we may take it for granted are consecutive;
and, on the authority of the last words of the text, are
four hundred and thirty consecutive years*. The
question which we should have to consider will con-
cern only their beginning or their ending: and either of
these being determined, the other is determined also.
* It is to be observed, that The difference affected only
the Hebrew and the Septuagint
differed in the statement of the
numbers in question. Origen,
Operum iii. 414. A. B. in loc.:
οὐκ ἀγνοοῦμεν δέ Twa τῶν ἀντιγρά-
φων ἔχειν ρ΄ καὶ ν΄ ἡμέρας" καὶ ἄλλα
Ζ καὶ ρ΄ (190) ἡμέρας, καὶ τὰ πλεί-
ova δὲ 4 καὶ ρ΄. ἡμέρας. ἀλλ᾽ ἐπι-
σκεψάμενοι τὰς λοιπὰς ἐκδόσεις εὕ-
ρομεν τ΄ εἶναι καὶ 2 (300) ἡμέρας.
Cf. Hieronymus, iii. 48. ad me-
dium, in Is. v: 173. ad calcem,
174. ad principium, in Is. xvii.
Syncellus, i. 423. 11. and 21.
the numbers for Israel; in the
number of years for Judah there
was no disagreement. And with
respect to the former, Jerome,
111. 721. ad medium, in Ezech. iv.
distinctly testifies that the He-
brew, Aquila, Symmachus, Theo-
dotion, and some copies of the
o themselves, had the number
390, not that of I90 or 150.
. Theodorit, ii.7 10-712, in Ezech.
Iv. 4, 5, 6. adopts the shorter
number.
528 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
Now, from iv. 8, a little lower down, And, behold, I
will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee
from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days
of thy siege—and also from v. 1-17, it seems to me a
just inference that the precise point of time, where the
four hundred and thirty years are supposed to end, is
with the close of the siege of Jerusalem, B.C. 588:
and consequently that the beginning, answerable there-
to, was sometime B. C. 1018.
Now it may be presumptively shewn that B. C.
1018 was the year of the numbering of the people in the
reign of David; a numbering, which 2 Sam. xxiv. 1.
ascribes to the anger of God against Israel; and
1 Chron. xxi. 1. to the malice of Satan. These are suf-
ficient indications of a time when the whole nation
was implicated in some sin; of which also the very
judgment, ultimately inflicted upon it, is a proof:
and as this sin was something which concerned both
Israel and Judah, it is a possible case that it might be
marked out as the ἀρχὴ of a period, expressly designed
to bear the znzquity of both, for a limited duration of
time since their settlement in the land of promise, until
their final punishment in the destruction of Jerusalem
and of the temple. I say a “meted duration; for four
hundred and thirty years are but a comparatively small
portion of 1520-588 or 932, the whole interval of
time comprehended between the Eisodus, and the de-
struction in question. The iniquity, therefore, which
was laid upon Ezekiel, and supposed to be contracted
through a period merely of four hundred and thirty
years, was not the accumulated iniquity of the house of
Israel since they became a people, but some portion of
it—which cannot be supposed to have begun until
five hundred and two years afterwards. Both these
criterions coincide in B. C. 1018: which, if it was the
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 529
year of the numbering of the people, was truly a year
distinguished by some national defalcation, and so far
a beginning of iniquity. The first year of Jeroboam,
king of Israel, it is true, was similarly distinguished,
and in an eminent degree; but this was by an iniquity
which affected Israel exclusively, and not Judah. Be-
sides, the true date of that iniquity was B.C. 974;
from whence 390 years, the period allotted to the ini-
quity of Israel, would bring us to B.C. 584; and
430, the period allotted to the iniquity of Israel and of
Judah both, would bring us to B.C. 544.
Now 2 Sam. xxiv. 13, whatever explanation may be
given of the mention of seven years of famine, com-
pared with 1-Chron. xxi. 12, which speaks of three, to
begin in the year after the numbering, I will*assume
that the statements are consistent with each other;
and will reason for the present from that of the Book
of Chronicles, which is confirmed also by the version of
the Seventy in the parallel passage of 2 Sam. xxiv. 13.
It was obviously in the power of David to have
chosen these ¢hree years of famine, before either of the
other alternatives: in which case it seems reasonable
to suppose that it was intended by the Divine Provi-
dence he should live through them. If so, we may
infer that the alternative in question was not proposed
to him later than B.C. 1017, three years before the end
of his reign. And the peculiar fitness with which it
might be proposed to him ¢hen will appear from this
consideration; that B.C. 1017 was the close of the
sixth year of the sabbatic cycle; the harvest of which,
unless judicially blasted and destroyed, (as at Haggai
1.9. ii. 16,17,) should have been three times as plentiful
as usual. For the jirst sabbatic year beginning with
Tisri, B.C. 1507, the seventy-first began with Tisri
B.C. 1017.
VOL. III. Mm
530 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
Now the numbering of the people was completed in
nine months and twenty days‘; and the day after the
return of Joab, David received the message of Gad ξ:
at which time, as appears from 1 Chron. xxi. 20, wheat-
harvest was ready to begin. It may be concluded,
therefore, that the numbering began in the seventh
sacred month, after the Scenopegia, B.C. 1018, and
terminated in the third or fourth, about the annual
recurrence of the Pentecost, B. C. 1017, when wheat-
harvest was ready to begin. The true year of the
numbering was thus B.C. 1018*: and the chronology
of the latter half of the reign of David, beginning with
the birth of Solomon, will still further establish this
conclusion.
Eupolemus, as quoted by Eusebius®, supposes Solo-
mon to have been twelve years old when he came to
the throne Ὁ ; and Josephus supposes him to have been
fourteen'. His true age, I believe, to have been seven-
teen; for he reigned only forty years—yet Rehoboam,
who succeeded him, was forty-one years old at his
death ; and consequently was born at the latest in the
first year of his father’s reign: which is much more
probable, if Solomon was then in his eighteenth year,
than if he was in his fifteenth, or merely in his thir-
* As the temple itself was ul-
timately built on the site of the
threshing floor of Araunah, where
Apostolicos, 888. E: and Jerome,
iii. 36. ad medium, in Isai. 111.: Et
e contrario Salomon duodecim
the plague was stayed, (2 Chron.
li. 1,) this fact also supplies
some degree of corroboration to
the truth of the construction put
upon the text in Ezekiel.
Τ So likewise the interpolated
Epistle of a ad Magne-
slanos, cap. apud Patres
f 2 Sam. xxiv. 8. 9 Ibid. 11.
i Ant. Jud. viii. vii. 8.
annorum erat quando suscepit
imperium. Chrysostom also has
the same statement, in Isai. iii. :
Operum vi. 35. §. 3. D. and
the Hypomnesticon of Joseph,
lib. iv. cap. 74. p- 171. 176. Cf.
Hieronymus, 11. 619. ad calcem.
Epistole Critic.
h Preparatio Evangelica, ix. 30. 447. B. Ὁ.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 531
teenth. Besides, on this principle, he would be just
in his twenty-first year, in the fourth year of his reign,
when he began the building of the temple. And he might
possibly defer it until then on purpose; for the age of
twenty, not earlier, was the Levitical age of majority.
I consider it therefore highly probable that Solomon
was in his eighteenth year, B.C. 1014: and conse-
quently was born B.C. 1031, in the twenty-fourth
year of David.
The course of events, which ensued upon the birth
of Solomon‘, and begin to be related 2 Sam. xiii. 1,
might begin with the very year of his birth, B.C.
1031. The first of the number was the violation of
‘Tamar'—from which to the death of Amon there were
two full years. This death took place at shearing
time™, that is, in the spring quarter of the year.
Hence, the violation of Tamar was B. C. 1031, a vere,
and the death of Amon, followed by the flight of Ab-
salom to Geshur, was B. Οὐ. 1029, a vere.
The time of Absalom’s exile at Geshur is stated at
three years"; but not at three years full. Hence, if
it began B.C. 1029, spring, it might expire B.C. 1026,
mmeunte, not long before barley harvest: and he would
have been ¢wo full years returned® at the same time,
B.C. 1024, when he set the field of Joab on fire.
Moreover, B. C. 1024 zneunte was the last half of the
sixth year of a sabbatic cycle: when there could not
but be barley on the ground. For 1507 —1024= 483
= 69 x7.
The note of time which follows next, xv. 7, 8, is
grossly corrupted. But 2 Chron. xxii. 2, compared
with 2 Kings viii. 26, is a case in point to prove how
easily the number ¢wo might have been corrupted into
: — iets, 1 [bid. xiii. 1—22. m Ibid. 23—27. n Ibid. 38.
Mm 2
532 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
the number four: for the age of Ahaziah, which is
stated at forty-two in the former, is represented at twen-
ty-two in the latter: and that only can possibly be the
truth. We may infer then that in this passage of the
Book of Samuel the true reading originally was two
years, if referred to the time of Absalom’s reconciliation
with David, or four, if referred to the time of the re-
turn from Geshur: a construction which verse eighth
appears to justify. In this case the course of events is
brought down to B.C. 1022, emeuntem, as the year of
the rebellion of Absalom.
From 2 Sam. xvi. 1, 2. xvii. 19. 28, 29. xix. it may
be collected that the flight of David from Jerusalem,
the defeat and death of Absalom, and the king’s re-
storation, were all events of this same year, B.C. 1022,
between the spring and the autumn.
The three years’ famine, which is next mentioned P,
might begin the year after the death of Absalom; and
if it began, as it ended4, at barley harvest, it would
begin B. C. 1021, spring, and expire B. C. 1018, spring.
On this principle that famine would only just be over
in the year of the numbering itself; nor could any
harvest as yet have been reaped before the time of the
Passover or Pentecost in the next. Hour years of
famine then must already have elapsed consecutively
up to B.C. 1017, medium ; and if three years more
were still to ensue from the same time forward, there
would be virtually seven years in all. And thus the
statement in the book of Samuel (which has also the
support of Josephus") admits of being reconciled with
that in the Book of Chronicles.
A careful perusal of the whole of the reign of David
will satisfy an impartial reader that there is not a
single fact disclosed in it, which can be shewn to be
Ρ 2 Sam. xxi. 1. ᾳ Ibid. 9; 10. r Ant. Jud. vii. xiii. 2.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 533
at variance with this distribution of the last seventeen
years of its duration : nor would it be difficult to arrange
these facts, from B. C. 1054, to B. C. 1031, in their pro-
per chronological order. But it is not necessary that we
should do it at present. We may observe only that, with
respect to 2 Sam. xiv. 27. and xviii. 18. since the three
oldest sons of David, Amnon, Chileab, and Absalom,
were born in that order, and while he was reign-
ing in Hebron, between B.C.1055. medio, and B. C.
1047. ineunte’, though Absalom had been born only
B.C. 1053, he would still be ¢hzrty-one years old B.C.
1022, in the year of his death; and might have had
children born to him, who yet might then be dead.
The context of 2 Sam. xiv. 27. seems to imply that
they were all born before, or not after, B.C. 1024,
when their father would be twenty-nine years old.
Again, with respect to Mephibosheth, who was five
years old at the time of the death of Jonathant, B.C.
1055. medio; he would be twenty years old, B. C. 1040,
and twenty-five, B.C. 1035: and if he was then ad-
mitted to the table of David", he might well have a
young son: and at the time of the rebellion of Absa-
lom, when he was accused by Ziba of aspiring at the
throne of Israel, he would be in all the maturity and
vigour of his age.
I think we have now done sufficient to establish our
original position, that the lengths of the reigns of the
kings both of Judah and of Israel are referred to a
nominal date, and the synchronisms of one reign with
another to a true; the former the first month in the
sacred calendar, the latter the particular month in
which they happened to begin. I think also we have
done somewhat towards the confirmation of another
assertion which we made, page 452, supra; that from
5.2 Sam. iii. 2. 5. v. 14—16. t Ibid. iv. 4. u Ibid. ix. 1—13.
M mn 3
534 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
‘the beginning of the reign of Solomon, to the com-
mencement of the seventy years’ captivity, the Bible
chronology was safely to be trusted. I do not know,
indeed, that this truth required any corroboration
from our own investigations; but it is a source of
satisfaction to find that our own conclusions, in a plu-
rality of instances, have the support and concurrence
of the eminent men to whom the arrangement of that
chronology is due.
There are yet some interesting coincidences which
might be pointed out with respect to the reigns of
contemporary kings of Egypt, who begin to be al-
luded to from the last year of Josiah downwards.
These are Pharaoh-Necho and Pharaoh-Hophra, the
former the Nechos, and the latter the Apries, of pro-
fane history: and it would be easy to shew, from the
beginnings and the ends of their reigns respectively,
that they must have been reigning, as is implied,
2 Kings xxiii. 29. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. Jerem. xliv. 30.
xlvi. 18—end. Ezek. xxx. 20—26. xxxi. 1,2. xxxii. 1,
2. 17,18. 31. between the last year of Josiah, B.C.
609. and Ezek. xxix. 1—17. B.C. 572, the beginning
of the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin’s captivity ἢ.
* Among these coincidences,
however, there is one in Isaiah4, ©
relating to Tyre, which I will
notice, but in brief. The pre-
dicted desolation of that city,
like the duration of the Jewish
captivity, was to last exactly
sevenly years from some begin-
ning or other; which, it seems
to me the most reasonable sup-
position of all, is the date of
its capture, or at least of its
siege, by Nebuchadnezzar. It
may be collected from Philo-
ἃ xxiii. 15.17.
b Apud Jos. Ant. Jud. x. xi.1.
stratus >, and from the Tyrian
archives‘, that the siege of Tyre
lasted thirteen years in all; and
from Ezekiel xxix. 17, 18. that
its last year was the twenty-
sixth of Jehoiachin’s captivity,
B.C. 573, in the thirty-fourth
of Nebuchadnezzar. The Ty-
rian archives, if they are
rightly quoted by Josephus,
confirm the same conclusion ;
for, from the close of the siege
to the first of Cyrus, the inter-
val which they specify is not
ς Contra Apionem, i. 21.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 535
I shall conclude, however, with some remarks on an-
other subject.
It is not distinctly asserted in the Old Testament that
Saul reigned forty years; yet, I think, it is presump-
tively to be inferred from it. We may ground this in-
ference on 2 Sam. ii. 10. which specifies the age of Ish-
bosheth as forty, when he began to reign; viz. in the
less than thirty-six years and
three months. Thirty-six years
before B. C. 536, would begin
and thirty-seven,
B.C. 573. The siege had not
yet begun, B.C. 588, in or
eleventh year of the captivity 4,
the nineteenth of Nebuchadnez-
zar ; which is abundantly suffi-
cient to disprove the assertion
of Josephus ®, that it was begun
as early as his seventh, B.C.
600.
If we supposed the seventy
years in question to begin B.C.
573, or 572, they would termi-
nate B.C. 503, or 502; one or
two years before the Naxian
war, followed in 15 conse-
quences by the Ionian revoltf.
Now the history of that war,
which was not decided, asI think,
until B.C. 493, proves that the
strength of the Persians by sea
consisted in the Phenician fleet 8;
and therefore that Tyre by that
time had recovered its maritime
eminence. But at the time of
the Scythian invasion, which
the Fasti Hellenici® place B. Ὁ.
508—so7. Darius was obliged
to depend exclusively upon the
Ionian fleeti: and the danger to
which le had been reduced, in
consequence of that depend-
d Ezek. xxvi. I, 2.7.
501. & Ibid. B.C. 494.
80. k viii. 6. δ. 19 —230
e Contra Apionem, i. 21.
h Ibid. Appendix, cap. 18.
ence, would be the strongest of
reasons with a wise and politic
prince like Darius, why he
shouldimmediately begin to raise
and maintain a navy of his own.
It is most probable, then, that
if Tyre had not yet risen from
her ruins, B.C. 508, or 507,
but had so B.C. 493, that she
actually emerged from them first,
B.C. 505; exactly seventy years
after B.C. 585, when the siege
began.
In like manner the forty
years’ desolation of Egypt, or a
part of it, Ezekiel xxix. 8—16,
which could not have begun be-
fore B.C. 572, if it began at
that time, would expire B.C.
532, in the fifth year of Cyrus,
dated from the beginning of his
reign at Babylon. It is in this
year, or not much before it,
that Xenophon, in the Cyro-
pediak, places the reduction of
Egypt by Cyrus, as consequent
upon that of Babylon: and if
the desolation in question began
with the conquest of Egypt by
Nebuchadnezzar, it might ex-
pire with its conquest by Cyrus:
whose restoration of the Egyp-
tian captives would be as na-
tural as his restoration of the
Jewish.
f Fasti Hellenici, B.C.
i Herodotus, iv.
M m 4
——-§36 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
. siath year of the reign of David at Hebron: and con-
sequently, as thirty-five in the jirst—or the year of the
death of Saul. It is a probable conjecture that, after
the death of. Jonathan, Abinadab, and Melchi-shua’,
Ishbosheth was the oldest surviving son of Saul; and
the conjecture appears to be confirmed by 2 Sam. xxi.
8. which seems to imply that, after the death of Ish-
bosheth, 2 Sam. iv. 7. Saul had no sons left except
Armoni and Mephibosheth, his children by Rizpah, the
daughter of Aiah. It is an equally probable conjec-
ture that these were all his sons by his queen as such,
Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz”; for Rizpah is
described as his concubine merely: and this conjecture
also is confirmed by 1 Chron. viii. 33. ix. 39. which
mentions these four, as the sons of Saul, only.
If, then, it could be proved that Saul was not yet
married when he was appointed king, the age of Ish-
bosheth at the time of his death would be a demon-
strative proof that he could not have reigned less than
thirty-five years at least. But Ishbosheth was not the
oldest of the sons of Saul: Jonathan was certainly
older than he; if not Melchishua or Abinadab: and if
Ishbosheth was thirty-five years old at the time of his
father’s death, Jonathan could not be less than thirty-
six or thirty-seven, and might be thirty-eight or thirty-
nine. It is a strong corroboration of this conclusion,
that 1 Chron. viii. 34. ix. 40, confirmed by 2 Sam. ix.
1—13, Jonathan had only one son; and this son * was
but jive years old at the time of his father’s death.
Jonathan then had been at least five years married at
the time of his death; but probably not much more.
And if he was married at thirty, or not much later,
this would accordingly be the case.
Now, from the whole of the narrative, beginning
v 1 Sam. xxxi. 2. 6. 8. 12. w Ibid. xiv. 49; 50. x 2 Sam. iv. 4.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 597
1 Sam. ix. 1, and ending 1 Sam. xii. 25, relating to
the appointment of Saul, there can be but one conclu-
sion; that Saul was a young man, in the literal sense
of the word, and still unmarried, at the time when he
was fixed upon as king. What then must be said to
the testimony of 1 Sam. xiii. 1. 2, which speaks of
Saul’s having reigned two years, and of something con-
sequently done in his third, when Jonathan his son
was not only born, but from the nature of the exploit
itself could not have been less than twenty years of
age 9 How this text may be understood in reality will
appear by and by; what the consequences would be
of understanding it literally shall be stated at present.
I. If Jonathan was twenty years old in the third
year of Saul; his father, who could not be less than
twenty at the time of his birth, could not be much less
than forty when he began to reign. But would a per-
son of the age of forty be described and set forth as
a young man, so repeatedly as is the case with Saul, at
the time when he was appointed king ?
II. If Saul was about forty when he began to reign,
he was about eighty at the time of hisdeath. Now he
died in battle: and is it to be supposed that a man of
eighty would still be able to go forth to battle as a matter
of course*? ‘The age of man had already been diminish-
ed to its ultimate standard of seventy years; and David
himself, who is said to have died in a good old age’,
did not live beyond that term of years: yet to what
* The age of sixty was fixed
by law at Athens, as the limit
of military service. Hence Pol-
lux, Onomasticon, lib. ii. cap. 2.
§. 6. ὑπὲρ τὸν κατάλογον, ὑπὲρ τὰ é&-
ἤκοντα γεγονὼςἔτη. Among the Ro-
mans it was even earlier, at forty-
two, forty-nine, or fifty: see Ma-
crobius, in Somnium Scipionis, i.
6. Aulus Gellius, x. 28. A sena-
tor’s term of service at Rome,
too, cannot be placed later than
sixty-five: See Seneca, Contro-
versiarum 1. vill: and, according
to other authorities, it is to be
placed still earlier, at sixty.
Υ x Chron. xxix. 28.
538 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
- bodily infirmity he was reduced a year or two before
his death is well known to the readers of his history.
It is incredible that Saul should be a stronger man at
eighty than David was at seventy; and it is still more
incredible that Saul, whose life was judicially abbre-
viated as it was, should yet exceed by ten years the
utmost length of days, conceded to a king, whose piety
and virtue rendered him the especial object of the Di-
vine favour, and caused his reign to be crowned by so
much of temporal prosperity *.
III. It is a just inference from 1 Sam. xiii. 13, 14.
that, though David had not yet been formally ap-
pointed to the future kingdom in the stead of Saul,
yet he was certainly alive at the time of that offence of
Saul, and would be so appointed ere long. And this
inference is still more confirmed by xv. 28; the time of
which could not be many years later. If so, David
was already born in the ¢herd year of Saul; and con-
sequently David was thirty-eight years old in the
fortieth. But this is directly contradictory to 2 Sam.
v. 4, 5. which shews that when he began to reign,
even in Hebron, he was still only thirty.
I think there is sufficient in these reasons to make
it be acknowledged that very great difficulties would
ensue, if we understood the first and second years in
question of the two first years of Saul, as dated from
* 9 Sam. xix. 32. SBarzillai lius Paulus, 10: Marcellus, 28:
is called a very aged man; and
yet he was but eighty. Not
that I would be understood to
maintain, that no instances are
on record of persons, who were
able to go out to war at sixty,
seventy, or eighty. On the con-
trary, there are many. See Plu-
tarch, Agesilaus, 36, or Xeno-
phon, Agesilaus, cap. ii. ὃ. 28:
Plutarch, Demetrius, 19 : Aimi-
Justin, xvii. 1: Lucian, Macro-
bii, passim. Alexander's vete-
rans, called the Argyraspides, at
the time of the last battle be-
tween Eumenes and Antigonus,
B. C. 316, were none of them
less than sixty, and some of
them seventy years old and up-
wards. See Diodorus Sic. xix.
41: Plutarch, Eumenes, 16.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 539
B.C. 1094. How then are we to avoid these conse-
quences, and yet to retain the integrity of the text?
I think it is possible to do both.
For first, insomuch as the length of Saul’s reign in
any sense is not asserted in the Old Testament at
forty years, like that of David or Solomon, it will be
entirely consistent with its testimony should it appear
that the length of his reign must be stated in one
sense, at forty years in reality, and in another, at only
twenty-two.
Secondly, it is asserted by Josephus”, that Samuel
survived the appointment of Saul eighteen years, and
Saul the death of Samuel twenty-two. The falsehood
of this assertion, if it be understood of the actual death
of Samuel, may be shewn so plainly, as to render it
matter of surprise that any writer upon sacred chro-
nology should ever have taken it for granted. If
Samuel is supposed to have died in the erghteenth year
of Saul, then the following absurdity is the conse-
quence; David, whom no one will pretend to deny
that Samuel anointed before he died, was anointed
almost before he was born. For as David was thirty
in the fortieth of Saul, it is manifest he was born
in the eleventh, and was in his eighth year in the
eighteenth. Now Samuel could not anoint David
after the eghteenth of Saul, if he died in that year;
though he might have anointed him in it. If so, he
could not have anointed David after the ezghth year of
his age, though he might have anointed him in it. Yet
when Samuel anointed David*, it is an indisputable
fact that he was old enough to be trusted with the
care of his father’s sheep—and either before this time,
or sooh after it», old enough to contend with, and to
master, a lion and a bear in defence of his charge.
z Ant. Jud. vi. xiii. 5. xiv. 9. a 1 Sam xvi. 11, 12. Cf. Ps. lxxviii. 70, 71.
Ὁ Ibid. xvii. 34—37.
540 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
' But will this be considered credible of a child only eight
years old? And if such is the consequence of suppos-
ing David to have been anointed by Samuel only in
the very year of his death, what must be the absurdity
of supposing that he actually anointed him several
years before his death! which yet is much more con-
sistent with the truth. For the anointing of David is
recorded xvi. 12, 13, and the death of Samuel xxv. 1,
at a time, which it may be collected from xxvii. 7.
xxix. 11. was probably not more than two years be-
fore the death of Saul: and this was the opinion of
Clemens Alexandrinus also ἢ.
The absurdity then of supposing that Samuel died
in the eighteenth year of Saul, as dated from his ori-
ginal appointment, must be evident without further
proof. It is very possible, however, that, dated from
the original appointment of Saul, the preexisting admin-
istration of Samuel, which had been going on exclu-
sively until then, might continue to go on conjointly
with his for ecghteen years afterwards. It is asserted,
chapter vii. 15, that Samuel judged Israel αὐέ the days
of his life; an assertion which surely requires to be
understood of something more than an administration
of twenty years merely, and much less of twelve;
which is all that Josephus assigns him.
It is my opinion that Samuel was born about the
tenth year of the administration of Eli; and that he
was about thirty years old when he succeeded him in
the office of judge. I attach no weight to the asser-
tion of Josephus, that he began to prophesy, πεπληρω-
Kos ἔτος ἤδη dwdéxatrov’—because it is a purely conjec-
tural date, the ground of which has been pointed out
Diss. xii. vol. i. 398: and the name of chdld, according
to the Hebrew idiom, would still be applied to him
Ὁ Stromatum i. xxi. 386. |. 1, 2. e¢ Ant. v..x6 4;
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 541
any time between his twelfth and his twentieth year*.
Nor is there any difficulty in conceiving that the first
revelation might be made to him ¢en years or more be-
fore the death of Eli. Some considerable interval must
have elapsed between 1 Sam. iii. 19, and the close of
the preceding narrative: as well as between the end
of 1 Sam. iii. and the beginning of 1 Sam.iv. The
penal denunciations of the Divine Providence are sel-
dom seen to be executed as soon as made: witness the
cases of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab: nor is it more
extraordinary that the beginning of the punishment
of the house of Eli should be delayed ten or fifteen
years after it was first denounced, than that its final
consummation should not take place until more than
one hundred years later; when Abiathar was deposed
from the priesthood by Solomon ¢.
If, however, Samuel was about thirty at the time of
the death of Eli, he would be about fifty at the time of
the appointment of Saul; and sixty-eight in the
eighteenth year of his reign: at which advanced age,
if he had never yet done so before, he might well be
supposed to retire from public life, or from the same
actual share in the administration of the affairs of the
kingdom, which he might have sustained until then.
It will follow from this supposition, that the one and
two years of the reign of Saul, which are mentioned
1 Sam. xiii. 1, are in reality the first one and two
years of his sole reign; and virtually the nineteenth
and twentieth since his original appointment : and the
course of events, which begins and proceeds from xiii. 2,
* Gen. xxi. 14, 15, 16, &c. —the end, though he was old
Ishmael is repeatedly called a enough to have children; and
child or lad, when he was cer- even had he been ten years
tainly more than fourteen, and younger than Joseph, he could
might be as much as seventeen. not have been less than twenty.
So likewise Benjamin, xliv. 20
d 1 Kings ii. 27.
542 Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
_ begins and proceeds from his twenty-first, or at the
earliest from his twentieth itself. The advantages
which immediately flow from this construction, and
their uses in reconciling the accounts of Scripture with
each other, or with general probabilities, are these.
First, it is not necessary to suppose that Saul was
more than twenty, or at the utmost than twenty-five
years old, when he was appointed king—nor than sixty,
or sixty-five, at the time of his death. At the latest of
the former of these extremes, he would still be strictly
a young man; and at the latest of the latter he might
still be able to go out to battle.
Secondly, it is not necessary to suppose that he was
married before the first year of his reign; nor conse-
quently that Jonathan his oldest son was more than
thirty-nine years old at his death: in which case -he
would be twenty years old in the twenty-first year of
Saul, and nineteen in his twentieth; and at either of
these times would be capable of the exploit attributed
to him 1 Sam. xiii. 2, 3. and xiv. Among his brothers,
too, the sons of Saul and Ahinoam &, Ishui (mentioned
after Jonathan, and, as it appears, the same person
with Ishbosheth) and Melchi-shua, might both be born
by the twentieth or twenty-first of Saul; but not neces-
sarily Abinadab: who yet might be born soon after,
and still be of an age to go out to battle, by the for-
tieth.
Thirdly, David, who was born in the eleventh year -
of Saul, would be but nine or ten years younger than
Jonathan, born as we suppose in his first or his second.
And who is there, that reads the exquisite narrative of
their wonderful friendship, but would suppose that,
with the most entire congeniality in other respects, the
difference of years between them could not have been
too considerable? This argument alone is sufficient to
e 1 Sam. xiv. 49.
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 548
convince us that Jonathan could not have been born
earlier than the first or second year of the reign of
Saul; for it would be difficult to believe that zs soul
could have been so intuitively knit with the soul of
David f, had not the kindred sympathies of one youth-
ful mind with another cooperated with any other mo-
tive to produce so immediate and lasting an impression.
Fourthly, it is not necessary to suppose that David
was anointed by Samuel before the sixteenth or seven-
teenth year of his age—the twenty-sixth or the twenty-
seventh of the reign of Saul; nor that he slew Goliath
before his nineteenth or his twentieth *, in the twenty-
ninth or the thirtieth: and soon after this time he
would manifestly be of an age to be married to Michal,
the daughter of Saul; as the narrative supposes him
to have been’. But he might manifestly be alluded to,
even in the twenty-first of Saul, and much more a few
years after, as a person already in being, though not
publicly known; and already fixed upon as Saul’s suc-
cessor in the kingdom, though not yet anointed.
Fifthly, at the time of the appointment of Saul, the
Israelites were in no danger from any enemy but the
Ammonites; the Philistines in particular, since the
deliverance recorded at the outset of the administration
of Samuel®, had been quite subdued. Yet we find
them resuming the offensive at the outset of xiii. 1. 8.
and maintaining a constant warfare, xiv. 52. thence-
forward to the end of the reign of Saul. But if they
had been subdued al/ the days of Samuel, this would
not be consistent, unless the days of Samuel were sup-
posed to extend at least up to xiii. 1. 3. in the reign of
Saul. If the days of Samuel, as such, really expired
* Theodorit, i. 381. in τ Reg. when he slew Goliath, πεντεκαί..
Interr. 41: μειράκιον ἦν,80. David, δεκα ἐτῶν ἢ ἑκκαίδεκα.
ἔχ Sam. xviii. 1. & Ibid. xviii. r7—27. h [bid. vii. 3—12. 13,
544 | Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
in the eighteenth of Saul—then the Philistines, who
might have been kept under, until then, by their dread |
of Samuel, might begin, in the nineteenth, to be again
superior, or at least to oppose a formidable resistance.
Sixthly, 1 Sam. xiv. 3. Ahiah, a grandson of Phine-
has, was ministering in the priest’s office, in the second
or third year of Saul; and xxi. 1. xxii. 9.11. at a much
later period, Ahimelech, his brother, was doing the same
in his stead: and xxii. 20-23, Ahimelech had a son,
Abiathar, already arrived at maturity: and this was
probably not more than four or five years before the
end of the reign of Saul. If Eli was ninety-eight.
years old at the time of his death, it is probable that
Phinehas was not less than fifty-eight *: and if Phinehas
had been married at thirty, his son, Ahitub, might be
then twenty-eight. - In this case, Ahiah a son of this
Ahitub might be actually in office, forty years after-
wards, in the twentieth of Saul; and Ahimelech, fifty-
five years afterwards, in the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth ;
and Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, be fully arrived
at maturity: yet not much more than sixty, at the be-
ginning of the reign of Solomon.
Seventhly, it is not necessary to suppose that Samuel
died more than two or three years before Saul, as the
context very clearly implies; or about the eighty-
eighth year of his age. The departure of David to
Achish seems to have been produced by his death—
and that was but one year and four months before the
fatal battle of Gilboa: nor had Samuel been long dead
when Saul applied to the witch of Endor; which could
not have been many days before his own death.
* 1 Sam. i. 3. Hophni and _ less than thirty at that time; in
Phinehas were both priests, and which case, Phinehas, at the
both acting in that capacity, the death of Eli, thirty years after,
year before the birth of Samuel. would be sixty at least.
They were probably then not
Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 545
Lastly, the assertion of Josephus, that Saul reigned
twenty-two years after the death of Samuel, is vir-
tually corroborated by Eupolemus, apud Eusebium?:
by Theophilus ad Autolycum*: and by others—who
all state the length of his reign ἁπλῶς at twenty-one or
twenty years; which being dated from the eighteenth
would be equivalent to thirty-nine: and the reign of
Saul was actually thirty-nine years complete, but not
forty. There seems, then, to have been always a cur-
rent tradition that the reign of Saul in some sense was
a reign of twenty-one, or twenty-two years, which the
testimony of St. Paul proves to have been one of thirty-
nine, or of forty. The origin of this tradition is ex-
plained by the distinction in question; that the first
eighteen years of his reign were divided with Samuel,
the remaining twenty-one or twenty-two were not.
Considered in this light too, the administration of the
Judges, which did not terminate except with the ad-
ministration of Samuel, may be supposed not to have
ceased before B. C. 1076, the beginning of the nine-
teenth of Saul. To this time from the date of the
Eisodus, B. C. 1520, the interval would be 444 years ;
which might easily be called in round numbers 450.
Vide supra, page 447—449 *.
* Eusebius (Chronicon Arme-
no-Latinum, i.170—172.) argues,
as I have done, from the age of
Ishbosheth at the death of Saul,
that Saul must have reigned forty
years ; which he divides between
Samuel and Saul. But he sup-
poses further, that Saul’s reign,
properly so called, was but of
two years’ duration ; that he fell
away, and was given up toa re-
i Preparatio Evangelica, ix. 30. 447. B. D.
Pollux, Chronicon, p.104.
VOL, III.
probate spirit, at the end of his
second year; and therefore (he
being as good as set aside) that
the rest of his reign was to be
reckoned as belonging to Samuel.
Sulpicius Severus, Sacra Histo-
ria, 1.64. ὃ. 8—14. mentions that
most chronologers supposed Saul
to have reigned thirty years : an
opinion, however, with which
he does not himself agree ;
k Lib. iii. cap. 24. 372. Cf. Julius
Nn
546
_ though for'a reason, which is
probably itself incorrect. He
considers it best, on the author-
ity of St. Paul, to allow his
reign a period of forty years,
divided, however, between him
and Samuel. We may observe
here also, that according to the
same historian, loco citato, some
chronologers supposed Samuel’s
Appendix. Dissertation Twelfth.
administration to have lasted
seventy years; and though he
remarks, Unde hee authoritas
fuerit assumpta non reperi, yet
it would be very consistent with
the hypothesis that he was about
twenty at the time of the pre-
diction of the death of Eli,1 Sam.
11.18, and about ninety at the
time of his own death.
APPENDIX.
μον,
——
SUPPLEMENT TO DISSERTATION XII.
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13.
"THERE is one construction of Daniel x. 13, not no-
ticed in the preceding Dissertation, which, if admitted
to be true, would deprive that text of all value as sup-
plying a chronological argument, to determine the in-
terval between the death of Evil-merodach and the
accession of Darius; and that is, to understand the
one and twenty days, there mentioned, of the three
“ weeks of days,” or “ full weeks,” alluded to x. 2 pre-
viously ; for which Daniel was mourning and fasting,
before he had the vision recorded in this and the fol-
lowing chapters.
It must be acknowledged that most of the commen-
tators on the Book of Daniel, both ancient and modern,
have understood the note of time at verse 13, with this
reference to verse 2 of the tenth chapter in question: and
it must also be admitted, that if we look only at the in-
terval of time, specified in each instance, there would
seem to be some reason for it; for three full weeks of
days, and twenty-one days literally understood, amount
to the same thing. Add to which, that Daniel was
mourning and fasting for that length of time; and
this may seem to be the same thing with that “ setting
his heart to understand,” and that “ chastening himself
before his God,” which are alluded to at verse 12:
from the first day of his doing which also he was there
told by the Angel, that “his words had been heard,”
and that “ he was come for his words.”
Nn
548 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
It would seem a natural inference from this allusion
also, that the first day in question is to be understood
of the first of the one and twenty days’ fasting and
mourning ; and, consequently, when the Angel proceeds
to observe, “ But the Prince of the kingdom of Persia
withstood me one and twenty days : it seems equally
reasonable to conclude that, but for the opposition of
the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, the Angel, who
came for the words of Daniel at the end of his three
weeks’ fast, would have come for the same reason at
the beginning of it; and therefore that the one and
twenty days, between the first hearing of the words
of Daniel, and the actual coming of the Angel, and the
one and twenty days’ opposition of the Prince of the
kingdom of Persia, denote the same interval of time
in each instance.
In answer to this objection, which after all is more
specious than true, it may be replied, first, that if it
was the case, as the Angel declared to Daniel, that
from the first day that “ he set his heart to understand
and to chasten himself before his God, his words had
been heard; and he was come for his words;” the most
natural and obvious construction of this declaration
would be to refer it to Daniel ix. 1, and the following
verses; especially as Daniel is there represented to
be doing, before the appearance of the Angel on that
occasion, the very thing which is here implied by
setting his heart to understand, and chastening himself
before his God: see ver. 2,3, 4-19: and his being so
employed is also represented as the moving cause why
the Angel was sent to him, to reveal the subject-matter
of the prophecy there recorded; and the last of these
things so critically the effect of the former, that the
command to the Angel to go forth was issued at the
very beginning of the supplications of πεώνον which
led to it: see ver. 20-23. |
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 549
On this principle, the first day alluded to x. 13, as
the day from which the words of Daniel had been
heard, would have no more right to be referred to the
third of Cyrus, x. 1, 2, than to the first of Darius, ix.
1, 2: in which case the one and twenty days’ opposi-
tion of the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, if that
was the reason why they had not been answered
sooner, could have nothing to do with Daniel’s three
weeks’ fast; for between the first of Darius and the
third of Cyrus, the interval far exceeded the duration
of this three weeks’ fast.
In the next place, an opposition of one and twenty
days, if literally understood of a three weeks’ duration
only, would seem to be much too insignificant a cir-
cumstance to be specially mentioned and insisted upon,
in an account of an interview between Daniel and the
angel Gabriel, so remarkable as this, and ushered in by
a vision of so glorious a character as the manifest-
ation of the second Person in the Trinity to the eyes
of the prophet Daniel, under the same form and with
the same attributes of dignity and majesty, exter-
nally, in which he afterwards appeared to St. John in
the Apocalypse, (i. 13-16): for that the person who
appears, and is described as appearing to Daniel, at x.
5, 6, is our Lord Jesus Christ, or God Incarnate, the
second Person of the Holy Trinity in an human but
glorified form; there can be no question: especially,
when this one and twenty days’ opposition, so under-
stood, is assigned as the reason why the words of
Daniel should not have been sooner heard; in other
words, why a vision of so sublime a nature should not
have been sooner vouchsafed to him: especially too, when
the nature of the parties concerned in the opposition on
both sides is considered—the Prince of the kingdom of
Persia, if not likewise the Prince of the kingdom of
Nn 3
550 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
. Grecia, on the one hand, and the angel Gabriel, and
Michael, one of the chief, or one of the first Princes,
and the Prince of Daniel and of his people in parti-
cular, on the other: for that these are designations of
real beings, and of beings superior to human, on the
one side, and therefore in all probability on the other
too, can scarcely admit of a doubt. Now between
opposing parties of this mysterious but exalted descrip-
tion—the angelic being, Gabriel, and the super-angelic
being, Michael, one of the first or chief Princes, that is,
one of the three Persons of the undivided Trinity it-
self, on the one side, and the corresponding antagonist
principles of powers and potentates like these, the
Prince of Persia and the Prince of Grecia, on the other ;
an opposition and a contest of three weeks’ duration,
and directed to no other purpose, than whether the
answer to the words of Daniel should take place three
weeks of days sooner, or three weeks of days later ;
(with submission and reverence be it spoken;) does
appear incongruous to the spirit of the whole descrip-
tion, disproportionate to the greatness and solemnity
of the occasion, and disparaging to the dignity of the
parties concerned in it on both sides.
In the third place, no one, perhaps, would have
imagined the fact of a reference at x. 13, 14, to the
fasting and mourning alluded to x. 2, 3, but for the
turn which the English version has given to the ori-
ginal, in rendering the latter part of verse 12: “ And
I am come for thy words,” and in introducing the next
verse by the adversative particle, “ But.” One could
scarce help concluding from the first of these versions,
that the Angel was just come in consequence of Daniel’s
words; and from the other, that he would have come
sooner, but for the opposition of the Prince of Persia.
The original, however, does not necessarily sanction
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 551
either of these conclusions. The latter part of verse
12 might just as well have been rendered, “And 7
came for thy words,” as, “ I am come for thy words ;”
and the particle which is rendered by “ But” in verse
13, might still more correctly have been rendered by
« And,” which is its proper meaning as it stands in the
text.
The truth is, as it appears to me, the whole of this
tenth chapter of Daniel, or that part of it which contains
the account of the words of the Angel, more particu-
larly,labours under an ambiguity in the English version,
which does not exist in the original; partly because
the position of some things in it, which are parenthe-
tically interposed, and should have been distinguished
accordingly, has not been attended to; and partly be-
cause the language of history or simple narrative has
not been preserved throughout it, as I conceive it
should have been, in an historical or recapitulatory
summary like this, which refers exclusively to the past,
without any allusion to what was present or passing,
or had been so recently, at the time. In my own
opinion, if this tenth chapter is to be rightly under-
stood, it is to be taken in connexion with the eighth ; it
being remembered only, that though connected with it
in point of reference, or community of subject through- -
out, it is yet considerably separated from it in point of
. time; the eighth chapter belonging to the third of Bel-
shazzar, and the tenth to the third of Cyrus.
In support of this opinion, it is necessary to observe
that the Book of Daniel admits of being divided into
two halves or sections, the historical and the propheti-
cal; the former of which requires to be distinguished
from the latter. The former is comprehended between
chapter i. and chapter vi. inclusive of both; the latter
between chapter vii. and the end of the book. The
Nn 4
552 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
. former begins with the third of Jehoiakim, or the first
of Nebuchadnezzar, reckoned from the time of his
association in the empire with his father; that is, from
what is equivalent to both, B. C. 606: and ends with
the first of Cyrus, as next in succession to Darius, B.C.
536; comprehending a period of seventy years, or the
duration of the Jewish captivity from first to last. See
Daniel i. 1. 5. 21: ii. 1: v. 81. The prophetical part
begins at vii. 1, in the first of Belshazzar, B.C. 561,
and ends at x. 1, in the third of Cyrus, B.C. 534; be-
tween which extremes, respectively, the interval is
twenty-seven years.
For that the first of the visions of Daniel, in other
words, the first portion of the prophetical matter, con-
tained in this book, without any mixture of historical,
properly so called, bears date from the first of Belshaz-
zar, appears from vii. 1: and that the second does so
in the third of Belshazzar, appears from vill. 1: and
these dates, if we are right in the conclusions which we
have endeavoured to establish—first that Belshazzar
was the same with Evil-merodach, the son of Nebu-
chadnezzar ; and secondly, with regard to the end and
beginning of his reign respectively—are the same with
B.C. 561, on the one hand, and B. C. 559, on the other.
But after this second vision, there is no mention of
any third one, like either of the former, before x. 1, bear-
ing date in the third of Cyrus; which if literally un- .
derstood of the third of Cyrus’ sole reign, after the
death of Darius, would answer to B. C. 534. We
have, it is true, the account of a prophecy interposed
in chapter the ninth, the date of which was the first of
Darius, B. C. 538: the celebrated prophecy of the
seventy weeks. But the account of this prophecy is
not the account of a vision, like either of those which
preceded, in chapter vii. and viii. respectively ; or like
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 553
that which follows in chapters x. xi. xii. to the end:
nor is the subject-matter of this prophecy connected
with that of the prophetic disclosures in chapters vii.
and viii. which preceded ; like that of chapters xi. and
xii. which follow. We are justified, therefore, in con-
tending that the continuation of Daniel’s visions, strictly
so called, after chapter viii. is found in chapter x : and
being there resumed, that one and the same thread of
prophecy which had been suspended at chapter viii.
is carried forward through the xith and xiith chapters
to the end of the book: for it requires no proof, that
all the matter, from xi. 2. to xii. 13, though divided
into two distinct chapters, is yet one and the same in
itself, and with what had preceded in chapters vii. and
viii. respectively. The chronological series then of
Daniel’s visions, properly so called, is from the first of
Belshazzar to the third; and from the third of Bel-
shazzar to the third of Cyrus. Between the first of
Belshazzar and the third, there was no renewal of his
visions as such, or none which is upon record; and
between the third of Belshazzar and the third of
Cyrus, the same thing holds good. If a prophecy is
interposed in the first of Darius, it is a prophecy suz
generis, and devoted to a different subject from any of
the visions before or after it.
Now, as in the account of the vision recorded in the
eighth chapter, there is a reference to the vision related
in the seventh, (Compare viii. 1. with vii. 1, &c.) so it ap-
pears to me, in the account of this vision in the tenth,
there is areference to that in the eighth. Let it only be.
granted that, as the instrument employed to interpret
these visions to Daniel, notwithstanding the difference
of the times and occasions on which they were vouch-
safed, must have been some definite agent or other, so
it was most probably one and the same in each; espe-
554 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
cially as the occasions themselves, however different in
point of time, were yet connected by a community of
relation and purpose, and the visions respectively
vouchsafed upon each, were devoted to disclosures com-
munis generis in each instance, and carrying on the
same train of prophetical history from first to last.
This presumption appears only reasonable. Let it
therefore be taken for granted, that the party convers-
ing with Daniel, in all these instances, in what manner
soever described, whether as simply under the image
of an hand appearing to him, or in any other way,
and even when indefinitely alluded to, unless the con-
trary is distinctly specified, or unless there is reason to
suspect it from the context, is some one and the same
Divine messenger; as at vii. 16, 23: viii. 13. x. 10.
18—xii. 4*. If this was the case, there will proba-
bly appear to be no reason, why the Angel employed
on these various commissions to Daniel should not be
supposed the angel Gabriel. The angel Gabriel is spe-
* The only exception to the
above presumption would ap-
pear to be in that part of the
twelfth chapter, which follows
from verse 5 to the end, in which,
a comparison of xii. 6, 7. with
x. 5. will demonstrate that the
speaker at xii. 7. must be the
same Divine being who appeared
to Daniel at the outset of the
xth chapter ; and whom we have
seen to be the second Person
in the Holy Trinity, in his In-
carnate capacity. Yet in what
follows from xii. 8. to the end,
there is no reason why the
speaker addressed by Daniel at
xii. 8. and who answers him
from xii. g, to the end, should
not be the same with whom he
had been conversing up to xii. 5.
There is no reason why the ac-
count of the vision from xi.
5—7. should not be considered
a parenthesis between xii. 4.
and xii. 8. For Daniel, xii. 5.
alludes to other two, which re-
cognises the person with whom
he had been conversing until
then, as a distinct person, who-
soever he was: and the language
of xii. 9. in the answer of the
person addressed by him at xii.
8, just before, (a question found-
ed on the words of the speaker
at ΧΙ. 7,) is so far the same
with that of xii. 4, the last words
of the angel with whom Daniel
had been conversing uninter-
ruptedly from x. 11, to the ac-
count of this vision at ΧΙ]. 5.
that the one may well be consi-
dered as the resumption and
continuation of the other.
~
Further consideration of Daniel x. 18. 555
cified by name, on two several occasions, as the actual
instrument to make certain prophetical communications
to Daniel; the occasion recorded in ch. viii. and the
occasion recorded in chapter ix. the former the second
of. Daniel’s visions, the latter the prophecy of the
seventy weeks: and there is a reference on the second
of these occasions of his ministry to his similar ministry
‘on the former: see ix. 21. and viii. 16. If some one
instrument, then, was employed upon-all these occa-
sions, there will appear to be little question that this
instrument was most probably the angel Gabriel in the
rest, who was actually the instrument in two of them*.
* The speaker distinctly spe-
cified as Gabriel at vili. 15, 16,
may also have been that same
saint, indefinitely mentioned at
verse 13, just before, as another
saint, “ and as speaking to that
certain saint,” or as the margin
has it, to that “ Numberer of
secrets,’ whom Daniel had just
heard speaking (see v. 13.) and
whose answer to the saint in
question alleges the disclosure
contained in verse 14. This
“ Numberer οὗ secrets,” or
*«* Wonderful Numberer,” if the
Hebrew term, by which it is so
expressed, Phelamouni or Pal-
moni, be rightly so rendered,
might very well be some one dis-
tinct from the other saints, and
more akin to the personage, de-
scribed at xii. 7, or x. 5, 6, than
to any other, who appears, or is
mentioned, inthe Book of Daniel:
but there is no reason why the
saint who speaks to him, and
whose question elicits that an-
swer which defines the time of
the vision, as at vill. 14, might not
be the saint, or holy angel, Ga-
briel, and the same who was af-
terwards commissioned to make
Daniel understand the vision,
as at villi. 15, and commissioned
too, we may presume, by the
same Numberer of secrets, or
Wonderful Numberer, before
adverted to, himself.
With respect to the above de-
nomination, Phelamouni or Pal-
moni, which occurs only once in
the Hebrew text, the Septuagint
version and Theodotion, have
rendered it as a proper name ;
and consequently retained it in
the text. We learn from Je-
rome, ili. 1105, ad calcem, in
Dan. viii that Aquila did the
same. Symmachus alone ap-
pears to have rendered it by τινί
ποτε, OY nescio cui; a version
which Jerome followed himself,
and which our translators seem
to have thought preferable. But
between the marginal sense as-
cribed to this word, and nescio
Cut, ΟΥ̓ τινί ποτε, the difference is
wide indeed ; yet if the word be
compounded as it appears to be
of s>, wonderful, and mn, to
number, the marginal sense
would seem to be the true. And
analogous as this designation ap-
pears to be to that of Wonder-
556 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
Now, with these observations premised, remembering
that the instrument employed on these several occasions |
to interpret Daniel’s visions, or to communicate new
prophetical revelations of the same kind, was in all
probability one and the same, the angel Gabriel; that
Daniel’s visions were only three in number; that the
dates of these three, respectively, coincided with the first
of Belshazzar, the third of Belshazzar, and the third
of Cyrus; that.there was no vision like either of the
preceding, between the third of Belshazzar and the
third of Cyrus, that is, between B.C. 559 and B.C.
534, an interval of twenty-five years: we shall not be
surprised to find the renewal of these prophetical vi-
sions and disclosures, in the third of Cyrus, ushered in
by a specific reference to the visions and their interpre-
tations, which had preceded in the first or in the third
of Belshazzar. In my own opinion, we have that re-
ference from x. 10, to xi.2: and of the two visions
previous to the present—that in the first of Belshazzar,
cap. vii. and that in the third, cap. viii—in my opinion
also the reference is rather to the second, than to the
first.
For first, I cannot help being of opinion, that when
the Angel tells Daniel, at x. 12, that “ from the first
day that he set his heart to understand, and to chasten
himself before his God, his words were heard, and he
came for his words ;” he means by this understanding,
the understanding of his visions more particularly ; to
have been permitted to see which, without being en-
abled to comprehend them also, would have been no
is afterwards represented in the
ful, Counsellor, applied to Im-
Apocalypse, under the figure of
manuel or God Incarnate, Isaiah
ix. 6. I cannot help being of
their opinion, who consider it to
be applied to the same person
here ; and the same person who
the Lamb, as opening the seals
of the sealed book, and reveal.
ing the secrets of futurity to the
end of time.
Further consideration of Daniel x. 19. 557
great privilege or distinction vouchsafed to the pro-
phet himself; and to interpret or make known which
intelligibly to his comprehension, was the actual object
of the mission of the Angel to him. Now all this is
literally applicable to the description at viii. 15, which
represents Daniel as anxiously “ seeking for the vision,”
that is, for the meaning of the vision, which he had
just seen, and to viii. 16—19, which represents Gabriel
as expressly commanded to “make him to understand
the vision,” and as “coming near to him” for that purpose
accordingly. I cannot consider it so applicable to vii.
15, 16, also; though that may describe Daniel as ac-
tuated by an equal, if not by a stronger anxiety to know
the meaning of what he had there too seen; for he is
there described as asking for information of his own
accord, and not as receiving it from a messenger sent
on purpose to give it: and though the saint from whom
he receives it might peradventure be Gabriel, yet he
did not give it him in discharge of an actual commis-
sion to that effect.
Again, it seems to me a reasonable inference from
x. 13, compared with x. 12, that if the Angel who
came because of the words of Daniel, and who, when he
came, was opposed by the Prince of Persia, and having
so come, and being so opposed by the Prince of Persia,
““ had remained there with the kings of Persia;” it seems,
I say, a just and reasonable inference from this descrip-
tion, that Daniel, and he, were both in Persia, when he
first came because of his words; and wherever Daniel
might subsequently be, that the Angel remained in
Persia. Now it is a remarkable coincidence, that at
the time of the vision, recorded viii. 2, &c. Daniel
was either bodily, or (pro tanto, and so far as regarded
the purposes of the vision) in spirit, in Persia; for
Shusan, in the province of Elam, where he was, or
558 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
where he believed himself to be, was Susa, in the pro-
vince of Persis; and the river Ulai, twice alluded to,
2 and 16, was a river that flowed by Susa, called Eu-
lzeus, and under that name described by Strabo, Pliny,
Marcion of Heraclea*, and others. It is another coin-
cidence that at the time of this vision in the third of
Cyrus, Daniel was actually somewhere on the banks of
the Hiddekel or Tigris, x. 1,4; the same river which
is again mentioned xii. 5,6: and wheresoever this
might be, it could not be any where in the neighbour-
hood of Susa, in particular; for Susa was not situated
upon the Tigris, though the Tigris might skirt the
province of Susiana, and fall into the Sinus Persicus.
It is another coincidence, that the Angel having been
left in Persia, as we collected by implication from viii.
2,16: and as is plainly declared at x. 13: speaks at
x. 20, of returning to Persia, after this vision, and its
interpretation, which clearly implies that he had come
thence in order to it. It is another coincidence that at
xi. 1, which ought to have made a part of the conti-
nuation of the tenth chapter, he speaks of the first
of Darius, and of something which he did in that
year, viz. strengthen and confirm Darius; implying,
as we may presume, that he had been engaged in doing
something of the same kind in general, though pos-
sibly different in particular, for the time before that;
which something is consistently explained, if we sup-
pose him to mean that he was employed for the inter-
val between the third of Belshazzar, and the first of
Darius, in contending with the Prince of Persia; and
in that year itself, in strengthening and confirming Da-
rius; but both for the same purpose, viz. the seconding
and maturing the counsels of God for the benefit of the
* Strabo, xv, 3. ὃ. 4. 201: graphi Minores,i. Susiane Pe-
ὃ. 22. 235: Pliny, vi. 31: Geo- _riplus, p. 18.
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 559
people of Daniel, and the people of Michael, their
Prince—the sole aider and abettor in these things, of
Gabriel himself, his fellow-labourer and fellow-cham-
pion in the same behalf.
These reasons appear to me competent to prove that
in the tenth chapter of Daniel there is a special re-
ference to the circumstances of the second of his visions,
and the last which he had had before that which is
now recorded ; a reference nothing extraordinary, after
an intermission of twenty-five years in the series of
these visions themselves. It is an historical chapter,
then, throughout, and serves both as a resumption of
the series of former prophetical disclosures, and as the
introduction to a new revelation, which both continues
and consummates the former. I cannot but think that
our English version has not done justice to it in this
respect ; nor so preserved the language of the original
throughout, as to shew this reference in it to the past:
which yet might easily have been done. Under this
impression, I shall take the liberty of laying before the
reader a slightly altered version of so much of it at
least as relates to the words of the angel Gabriel; be-
ginning at verse 12.
12. And he said to me: Fear not, Daniel: for from
the first day that thou settedst (gavest) thine heart to
understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy
words were heard, and I came for (in) thy words.
13. And the Prince of the kingdom of Persia was
withstanding me one and twenty days; and behold
Michael, one of the Princes, the first ones, came to help
me: and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
14. And I am come to make thee understand that
which shall come to pass unto thy people, in the end
of the days: for yet zs 25 vision for days.......
20. And he said; Hast thou known wherefore I
560 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
- am come unto thee? and now shall I return to war with
the Prince of Persia: and I was going forth, and be-
hold, the Prince of Javan came.
- 21. But I will declare to thee the thing which is
noted in scripture of truth. And not one, that is
strengthening himself with me, upon these things,
except Michael your Prince.
xi. 1. And I, in the first year of Darius the Mede,
was standing my standing to strengthen and to con-
firm him.
2. And now will I shew thee truth.
We observed before that some things in this ad-
dress required to be understood parenthetically, which |
the Bible version had not distinguished accordingly.
This is particularly the case with verses x. 20, 21. and
xi.1,2. It seems to me that the sense of these pas-
sages would be best expressed, if we stated them as fol-
lows:
And he said; Hast thou known wherefore I am
come unto thee? And I was going forth, and behold,
the Prince of Javan came. But I will declare to thee
the thing which zs noted in scripture of truth.
And. now shall I return to war with the Prince of
Persia: and not one, that is strengthening himself
with me, upon these things, except Michael your
Prince. And I, in the first year of Darius, was stand-
ing my standing to strengthen and to confirm him.
And now will I shew thee truth. |
The Angel had explained to Daniel the reason of
his coming; partly in verses 11, 12, and partly in
verse 14: and therefore might well ask him, in verse
20, Hast thou known wherefore I am come unto thee? a
reason so important, as far as Daniel at least was con-
cerned, and so personally interesting to him, that
though the angel Gabriel’s proper place was with the
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 561
Kings of Persia, and his proper employment while
there, to contend with the Prince of the kingdom of
Persia; he had been expressly dispatched from thence,
to discharge this particular commission in behalf of
the prophet Daniel: he had consequently left his pro-
per place vacant, and the discharge of his proper duty
in abeyance, for a time, to come on this errand to
Daniel. And as an additional means to enable him
to judge of the importance attached to his coming,
and of the special privilege conceded to himself there-
by; he tells him of this further fact, that not only
was the Prince of Persia meanwhile to be left behind,
while he came on this errand to him, but that as
he himself was going forth, the Prince of Javan, that
is, Grecia, came. |
The received translation has rendered these words
as future; “And when I am gone forth, lo! the Prince
of Grecia shall come ;” in which, as it appears to me, it
has greatly mistaken the sense of the original, and
greatly endangered the right understanding of the pas-
sage: for the first impression from this version would
be, that when Gabriel was gone forth, the Prince of
Grecia would come to take his place ; and consequently
either to fight with the Prince of Persia, as he himself
had done, or to be the means of fresh communications
to Daniel, as he had been; both which constructions
of the Angel’s meaning, I apprehend, would be far from
the truth.
But the truth is, that the Hebrew admits of these
words’ being rendered as simply historical or past; a
version which would obviously be much more consist-
ent with the context, than the other. For surely this
going forth of the Angel is to be understood of his
setting out from where he was; viz. with the Kings
of Persia; upon his errand to Daniel: in which case,
VOL. III. 00
562 Appendix. Supplemeni to Dissertation Twelfth.
- he must be understood to say, that as he was setting
forth upon that errand the Prince of Javan came.
But who was this Prince of Javan? and what the pur-
pose of his coming? Doubtless, if it be true, as the
Angel directly afterwards asserts, that not one held
with himself upon these things, but Michael, the
Prince of Daniel and his people, it was some enemy
of Gabriel’s and Michael’s, both, as much as the Prince
of Persia; and the object of his coming was to make
common cause with the Prince of Persia in opposing
them both. The coming then of such an one was the
arrival of one enemy more, in addition to that whom
Gabriel had before to encounter; and whom he was
preparing to leave behind him, by going on this errand
to Daniel: yet notwithstanding this, he tells him he
had come on this errand, in his behalf; and he should
not return until he had accomplished it, by declaring
unto him the thing which was noted in scripture
of truth: in other words, until he had made him ac-
quainted with so much of the future, in reference to
himself and his people, as was already determined on
in the counsels of God, and already recorded on the
tablets of heaven, and in due time should infallibly
come to pass. He reminds him also that in the first
year of Darius he was standing to strengthen and
to confirm him, though that too was something over
and above his proper commission, if Darius was
reigning in Media or Babylon, but the Angel’s place
was with the Kings of Persia; and in like man-
ner now also would he declare to Daniel truth. And
this business accomplished, he tells him he should
return, to war with the Prince of Persia, that is,
go back again where he was before, and to his for-
mer employment; though there too, he gives him to
understand that he should wage that contest alone,
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 563
or with none ‘to assist him, but Michael, Daniel’s
Prince, and the Prince of his people.
I cannot help thinking that the above is a faithful
representation of the exordium of the Angel’s address,
before he proceeds to the proper execution of his com-
mission, in that revelation of the future which begins
at xi. 2, and continues to the end of the book. To
return then to the point from which we set out:
What evidence do we perceive in these words, of a
reference to the three weeks of Daniel’s fasting and
mourning? and how unworthy of the solemnity and
importance of the occasion, if I may again be per-
mitted the observation, would such a reference, suppos-
ing it existed, now appear! If so, the argument from the
one and twenty days, that they denote so many years,
beginning in the third of Belshazzar, remains so far
unshaken. But where, we may ask, do they termi-
nate? In the third of Cyrus, the date of this present
vision ? or at some earlier period? Not in the third of
Cyrus, and consequently at some earlier period. For
during that one and twenty days’ opposition of the
Prince of Persia, Gabriel remained with the Kings of
Persia: which clearly implies that all that time he did
not stir from thence. These one and twenty days, then,
were not only one and twenty days of opposition from
the Prince of Persia, but of Gabriel’s continuance with
the Kings of Persia. ‘These twenty-one days, then,
must have been over, if it appears that-Gabriel after a
certain time was no longer with the Kings of Persia,
but somewhere else; and it appears that he was no
longer with the Kings of Persia, but somewhere else,
on two several occasions—once, as he tells us, when he
stood up to strengthen and to confirm Darius, and
again, when he came on this errand to Daniel. On the
one of these occasions he was with Darius in Media
002
564 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
- or Babylon; and on the other with Daniel on the
Tigris. And whichever of these two was prior in point
of time to the other, the twenty-one days of opposition
alluded to, which must have expired when Gabriel
first quitted Persia, would expire first and properly
with that. Now the occasion when Gabriel was
with Darius in Media or Babylon, was prior in point
of time to that when he was with Daniel on the
Tigris. He himself alludes to it on the second occa-
sion, as a past event. ‘The twenty-one days therefore
expired properly with that occasion ; and that occasion
was in the first year of Darius. The twenty-one days
therefore expired properly in the first of Darius; and
we have seen that they began in the third of Bel-
shazzar. If so, between the third of Belshazzar and
the first of Darius, there was exactly one and twenty
days’ interval; and consequently if these days are to
be understood of years, (which after what has been
shewn, no one, I should think, will be disposed to call
in question,) of one and twenty years.
As we observed in the last Dissertation, the acces-
sion of Darius the Mede to the throne of Nebuchad-
nezzar, was a change in the reigning dynasty, which
brought the purposes of Providence with respect to the
restoration of the Jews, so much the nearer to their
consummation. The seventy years’ captivity was even
then on the point of expiring. In two years after the
accession of Darius, the Jews would return to their
native land. The proximity of this event, and its con-
nection with the accession of Darius, are most clearly
illustrated by the fact that the same point of time was
selected as the moment at which to reveal the pro-
phecy of the seventy weeks—the date of which was in
the first of Darius; a prophecy which presupposes the
restoration and return of the Jews. Yet the accession
‘urther consideration of Daniel x. 13. 565
of Darius was ‘not absolutely the commencement of a
new dynasty: for if it be true, as our other authorities
have implied, that his father’s sister was the wife of
Nebuchadnezzar, and the mother of Evil-merodach, or
Belshazzar, himself; then, in defect of the line of Ne-
buchadnezzar, through Belshazzar, the throne might
seem to have devolved upon Darius in something like
lineal descent. The years of the captivity were de-
stined to be coextensive with the duration of the Baby-
lonian empire; and that, too, consequently must last
seventy years as well as the other. ‘Though therefore
the deliverance of the Jews might be at hand, in the
first of Darius, it was not yet come; and though the
Babylonian empire might be ready to pass to the Per-
sians, when it had devolved upon the Medes, it had
not yet passed to them before the first of Cyrus. We
may perceive, then, a reason why the angel Gabriel, in
his proper vocation as the champion of the people of
Daniel, aided and supported by Michael their Prince,
should stand up to strengthen and confirm Darius, at
the beginning of his reign ; and yet the opposition of
the Prince of Persia, to himself and Michael, be con-
tinuing just the same. Upon that strengthening and
confirming of the kingdom in the hands of Darius, we
may presume, would depend its ultimately passing
into the hands of Cyrus: into whose hands it must
pass, before the Jewish captivity could come to an
end. We know not the actual circumstances under
which the kingdom of Babylon really passed from
Nabonadius the last of its possessors, to Darius the
Mede. There is an hiatus, upon this subject, in the
Book of Daniel, which is very imperfectly supplied
from other sources. But we may well presume it was
not without a contest of some kind, and not without
trouble and danger, if not uncertainty and insecu-
003
566 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
‘ rity, before Darius was firmly established on the
throne.
And as to the opposition of the Prince of Persia,
which had begun so long before this time, there is
no reason why it might not continue long after it also;
and it appears in fact that it was actually continuing
in the third of Cyrus, five years later than the first of
Darius, at least; for the Angel tells Daniel that even
after discharging his commission to him, he should
return to war *with the Prince of Persia, that is, to
renew the same contest as before. If the third of
Cyrus is rightly to be understood of the third of his
reign, dated from the death of Darius, the Jews had
been restored two years at least before this time. But
we know that even in the reign of Cyrus, very soon
after their return, attempts were made by their ene-
mies, both to stop the building of the temple, and to
impede the peaceable settlement of the country, and the
final restoration of their government and laws. Their
adversaries, we are told at Ezra, iv. 5, in particular,
hired counsellers against them, that is, persons to injure
and impede their interests, by bringing them into dis-
credit with the reigning monarch, all the days of Cyrus
himself, as well as afterwards, through the reigns of
Cambyses and Smerdis (see Ezra, iv. 6. 7.) unto the days
of Darius king of Persia. If there was such an oppo-
sition in the reign of Cyrus, it might already have
begun to work, by the third of his reign, notwith-
standing the favour extended to the Jews in his first ;
and it might be his knowledge of that fact, and his
grief at the success of the enemies of his countrymen,
that gave occasion to the fasting and mourning of
Daniel, alluded to at the outset of his tenth chapter.
It is time, however, that we should pass to the con-
sideration of a question, which will be readily allowed
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 567
to be the most difficult part of our subject; viz. What
we are to understand by the Prince of Persia, men-—
tioned in verse 13 and 20, and by the Prince of Grecia,
mentioned in verse 20? I am well aware that the
opinion, which I ventured to express upon this sub-
ject, page 513, supra, though going no further than
the statement of a belief in the personal existence and
personal agency of beings of some kind, so called, is
apparently opposed to the authority of bishop Hors-
ley, in his sermon on Daniel iv. 17; where he takes
occasion to review the doctrine of tutelar or guardian
angels, and to examine the passages in the Book of
Daniel, which might seem to give countenance to it.
The judgment which he pronounces upon the rest of
these passages will be found in the sermon in ques-
tion; but as to these texts in particular, he gives it as
his opinion, that “the Princes of Persia, in the Book
of Daniel, are to be understood of a party in the Per-
sian state, which opposed the return of the captive
Jews, first after the death of Cyrus, and again after
the death of Darius Hystaspis:” and, “the Prince of
Grecia,” in like manner, “ of a party in the Greek em-
pire, which persecuted the Jewish religion after the
death of Alexander the Great, particularly in the
Greek kingdom of Syria.” Horsley’s Sermons, third edi-
tion, 1812. vol. ii. p. 378.
With respect to the doctrine of tutelar or guardian
angels, if understood in +the sense in which bishop
Horsley opposes it, and labours to confute it, I do not
think it is properly concerned in the solution of the
question, what is to be understood by the Prince of
Persia or the Prince of Grecia, in the present instance.
Upon the truth or the falsehood of that doctrine, there-
fore, the reader is at liberty to concur with the bishop,
or to dissent from him, as he thinks best. But with
0 04
568 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
. regard to the decision of this particular question, as
stated in the above extract from his sermon, much as
the authority of bishop Horsley deserves to be respect-
ed, and much as we are bound to defer to his deliberate
opinion upon any point which concerns the interpreta-
tion of the Old or New Testament, I cannot hesitate to
declare my conviction, that nothing can be more unsatis-
factory, than this method of solving the difficulties of
scripture, nothing more vague and indefinite, than this
mode of explaining its language.
For in the first place, it is not the Princes of Persia,
as the representation of the bishop would imply, of
whom the Angel speaks at Daniel x. 13 and 20, but
the Prince of Persia. He speaks, it is true, of the
Kings of Persia, at verse 13; but under a different
name from that which he gives to the Prince of Persia,
and not in the singular, as there, but in the plural.
Nor let any one imagine that this objection is merely
verbal, and a captious exception against an unguarded
use of words; or that it proceeds on the supposition
of a distinction without a difference. The use of words
in speaking upon this subject should be regulated by
the language of scripture; which gives us authority
for speaking of the Prince of Persia, but none for
speaking of the Princes of Persia. And as to the sup-
position of a distinction without a difference—the truth
may turn out to be, that between the Kings of Persia
and the Prince of Persia, in the language of scripture,
there may be the widest difference; and how many
soever these Kings of Persia might be, there could be
only one such Prince.
In the next place, supposing the Prince of Persia, in
this instance, and the Prince of Grecia, in the next, to
denote a political party of some kind or other, the one
in Persia, the other in Greece; what shall we under-
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 569
stand by the Prince of Tyrus, apostrophized in Ezekiel
xxviii. 2-19 ? The Prince of Tyrus is a mode of speak-
ing analogous to the Prince of Persia, or the Prince of
Grecia; and if that mode of speaking is scriptural
language for a faction or party, in either of these in-
stances, it seems only reasonable to conclude that it
must be scriptural language for a faction or party in
the other. True it is, that Ezekiel uses a different
word, xxviii. 2, to describe this Prince, from that
which is employed, Daniel x. 13 and 20, to designate
the Prince of Persia, or the Prince of Greece; but a
word which denotes Prince as much as that, and is
translated ἄρχων by the Septuagint version, in Ezekiel,
as much as the other by Theodotion, in the book of
Daniel. Now what faction or party can possibly be
intended by Ezekiel’s apostrophe to the Prince of
Tyrus, ch. xxviii. 2-19? or as he is there also de-
nominated, the anointing and covering cherub ? If so,
the Prince of Tyrus in this passage of Ezekiel, is not
scriptural language for a political party; and by parity
of consequence, neither the Prince of Persia nor the
Prince of Grecia, in Daniel: for the one is precisely
analogous to the other; and in the stated use of
terms, the one must mean something analogous to
the other. Bishop Horsley, indeed, has not con-
sidered this text; because it was not one of those
which occurred in the Book of Daniel. But that
it might obviously have been suggested by those
which do occur there, and that if it presented itself, it
was deserving of a few words of explanation to recon-
cile it with them, no one, perhaps, will deny.
Again, it is a singular violence to the common use
of words, and asingular departure from the established
modes of speech, to call a party or faction the Prince
of Persia, or the Prince of Grecia; especially when we
570 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
consider the word which is employed in each of these
instances. ‘This word in the original is ἫΦ : which
the Septuagint renders by στρατηγὸς, Theodotion and
others of the Hexapla by ἄρχων: and it properly de-
notes a captain, commander, or governor. But what
propriety would there be in calling a party or faction
the στρατηγὸς or ἄρχων of Persia, or the στρατηγὸς or
ἄρχων of Greece, particularly when it appears that this
faction or party was not dominant or ruler in either ;
but that Persia at least, if not Greece, had its king or
its ruler, strictly so called, and distinct from this faction
or party, all the time ?
But again, that we may waive the objection from
the use of language altogether, what shall we say to
the singular anachronism, involved in the bishop’s opin-
ion, that a Prince of Persia, and a Prince of Greece,
whether some one person or a party of persons, whom
the angel Gabriel so plainly describes as existing, and
acting in their proper capacity, at least as early as the
third of Cyrus, should neither begin to exist, nor to
act, until 48 years later than the third of Cyrus, in
one of these instances, and 211 years later in the
other ? For between the third of Cyrus, B.C. 534,
and the death of Darius Hystaspis, B.C. 486, which
the bishop assumes as the date of the rise of one of
these parties, the interval is 48 years; and between
the same date and the death of Alexander, B. C. 323,
which he assumes as the date of the rise of the other,
the interval is 211.
Again, if the Prince of Persia and the Prince of
Grecia are to be understood of a party or faction, the
one in Persia and the other in Greece; then these
terms, instead of denoting a person or persons in either
of these instances, denote an abstraction in both: for
that a party or faction, as opposed to a personal agent,
Further consideration of Daniel x. 19. 571
is a mere abstraction, no one, I should think, will deny.
What shall we say, then, to the representation of the
angel Gabriel, that this Prince of Persia or this Prince
of Greece, or both, that is, this mere abstraction—this
mere generality—this simple notion of an accident
without a subject—was the proper coordinate, but
opposing, principle, or as the Greek language would
express it, the ἀντίστοιχον, of himself and Michael ?
the proper antagonist with whom they had both been
contending for twenty-one years past or more, before
this interview with Daniel, and with whom they should
have to contend for some time, more or less, to come,
even after this interview with the prophet ? Will it be
maintained that Gabriel is not a person, or that Mi-
chael is not a person ? And if not, how can it be con-
tended that the proper antagonist principle of both, or
of either of them, can be other than a person also?
For what can be the coordinate of a person, as such, but
a person, as such ? or of an abstraction as such, but an
abstraction as such? We have an example of this dis-
tinction, and an argument in point to the proper use of
terms with reference to it, at 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15: where
St. Paul is contrasting the most opposite things to-
gether, and strictly coordinate or avticrovya—yet some
of them in the abstract, others in the concrete. Tis
μετοχὴ. Says he, δικαιοσύνη καὶ ἀνομίᾳ 5 τίς δὲ κοινωνία
φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος ; ἢ τίς μερὶς πιστῷ μετὰ ἀπίστου; Here
we have one abstract conception opposed to another,
each to its proper correlative, considered as contraries ;
but all as abstract alike. But when he proceeds to
subjoin, τίς δὲ συμφώνησις Χριστῷ πρὸς Βελίαρ; he op-
poses ἃ real person to a real, and no longer an ab-
straction to an abstraction: for that Christ is an actual
person, there can be no doubt, and that Beliar opposed
to him, is the same, will be as little disputed, when it
572 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
- is considered that in the language of St. Paul, and in-
deed of the Christians of the time, Beliar is but an-
other name for Satan. The natural inference, then,
from the particular language of the Angel in Daniel
should be, that the Prince of the kingdom of Persia,
or the Prince of Greece, must be as much an indivi-
dual person and a real agent, as himself or Michael ;
and that if himself and Michael were not only real,
but superhuman beings, the Prince of Persia and the
Prince of Greece were real and superhuman beings
also: for as reality in general can be properly opposed
to nothing but reality in general, on the one hand; so
reality of a particular kind can be properly opposed
only to a corresponding reality, on the other. Tried
by this rule, as a real or personal agent can have only
a real or personal antagonist, and an individual per-
sonal agent only an individual personal antagonist ; so
a spiritual or transcendental, but personal agent, can
have only a spiritual or transcendental, though per-
sonal opponent.
And as to the doctrine of tutelar or guardian angels,
without venturing to express a decided opinion of my
own upon it, or entering on a discussion which I con-
sider to be foreign to the present question, I cannot
help observing, that in calling it an abominable doc-
trine, the bishop has used too harsh a term; and in
charging it with a direct tendency to polytheism, to
idolatry, or to angel-worship, he charges it with con-
sequences to which it is not justly liable. For it was
never intended by this doctrine, as far as I understand
it, to take the government of the universe out of the
hands of the one great Lord and Master of all, or to
transfer to the creature, however dignified and exalted,
the honour which is due to the Creator. It was never
intended by it to teach or inculcate the belief of any
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 573
thing, but what was presumed to be of God’s own ap-
pointment, if it had any existence, and therefore to be as
agreeable to his will, as consistent with his perfections,
and no disparagement to his rights. The question is,
after all, a question of scripture testimony, or what the
word of God itself has revealed upon this subject. We
know far too little of the nature and constitution of
the invisible world, to undertake to pronounce of our-
selves, beyond what is written, whether there is, or
there is not, any foundation for the doctrine of guard-
ian angels, intrusted with the charge of particular
portions of the works of God. We may rest assured,
indeed, that there is an invisible world, which has its
proper inhabitants; and that those inhabitants have
their proper employments; and that myriads of in-
telligent agents, much superior to mankind, are night
and day employed on the service of the God of Saba-
oth, and doing his will, in a variety of ways, of which
we can form no conception at present; and each, we
may presume, in some appropriate manner of his own,
without interfering with the same duty on the part of
another. We may rest assured, that if the administra-
tion of the Divine government, and the purposes of the
Divine providence, are carried on and promoted by
means of instruments, and subordinate agents, in the
visible world, it cannot be contrary to the Divine
nature and attributes, that something like the same
rule should prevail in the invisible. We may rest
assured, at least, that if God is a. God of order in his
church, and a God of order in nature, and a God of
order in the moral and civil world, he cannot be a God
of disorder in the spiritual world; and that if an har-
monious distribution of parts and offices, a due subor-
dination and dependance of one thing upon another,
and a general concurrence of individual functions and
574 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
- Individual agencies, to the good of the whole, prevail
to a wonderful degree among his works upon earth;
they prevail, in all probability, much more perfectly and
much more wonderfully among his creatures in heaven.
If any weight is to be allowed to the concurrent
belief of Christians, especially when it can be traced
back to the primitive and apostolical times of Christian-
ity itself; it would be easy to shew, by a production of
passages from the writings of ecclesiastical men, that
the persuasion of the existence not only of presiding
national or tutelary, but even of individual guardian
angels, prevailed in the church from a period of so
remote an antiquity, that the first origin of the per-
suasion can with no show of reason be attributed either
to Gentile or to Jewish superstition, as the bishop sup-
poses, (neither of which, at that time, can be justly
considered to have been capable of influencing the
church,) nor to any thing but a kind of apostolical
sanction for it, the memory of which had been pre-
served by tradition. It is not true, as the bishop con-
tends, that this notion was borrowed first by the rabbis
from the Gentiles; and then by the Christians from
the rabbis. We find it recognised by Christian writers,
who were incapable of Gentile prejudices, and abomin-
ated in particular the whole system of pagan supersti-
tion and polytheism ; and knew nothing of rabbinical
or cabbalistic traditions, which at that time had pro-
bably no existence. It is very certain, too, that whe-
ther right or wrong in itself, the Fathers who inculcate
this doctrine, believed they had scriptural authority
for it, in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy xxxii.
8, to which text they most frequently appeal in con-
firmation of it: ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ὕψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς διέσπει-
pev υἱοὺς ᾿Αδὰμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ΑΓΓΕΛΔΩΝ
θεοῦ. The Hebrew indeed has a very different reading,
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 575
which is faithfully expressed in our English Bibles.
But admit the Septuagint reading—and the doctrine of
presiding or tutelar angels would seem to flow out of it
without much straining to the obvious meaning of the
text.
It must be confessed, indeed, that whatever opinion
we may form of the particular nature or particular
employment of these two beings, who are described in
the present instance, the one as the Prince of the king-
dom of Persia, the other as the Prince of Javan or
Greece ; the manner in which they are spoken of, and
the peculiar designation which is given them, as Ar-
chons or Princes, is scriptural at least, and has the
sanction not only of the Old Testament in this in-
stance, and in the instance considered from Ezekiel,
but also of the New. For both St. Paul and St. Peter
have taught us, that the regular phraseology of scrip-
ture in speaking of the angels, collectively, is with
such denominations as these—under styles and titles
denoting power and mastery, empire and supremacy,
of some kind or another—thrones, (@pévo.,) principali-
ties, (κυριότητες,) rules, (apxai,) authorities, (ἐξουσίαι.)
powers, (dvvaues,) or the like: see Romans viii. 38:
Ephesians i. 21: iii, 10: Colossians i. 15,16: 1 Peter
iii. 22. They have taught us, also, that though the
angels are distinguished into good and bad, this pecu-
liar phraseology in speaking of them is not confined to
the good; the same high-sounding styles and titles are
equally applied to the bad: see Ephesians vi. 12: 1 Cor.
vill. 5: xv. 24: Coloss. ii. 15: from which we might
justly infer, they were the common right of both, or so
inherent in the angelic nature, that they could not be
separated from it, even by the effects of the fall. The
angels were essentially ruling and governing, or ar-
576 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
chon, Principles; so essentially, that they could not
cease to be so, even after the fall.
But the truth is, as it appears to me, the doctrine of
tutelary angels, properly so called, and understood in
that sense in which the bishop endeavours to confute
it—which is the doctrine of created spirits, of a kind
superior to human, but good, delegated and deputed
by the Supreme Being to have the charge of particular
countries, or particular portions of mankind—is not
concerned in the solution of this present question.
For, as far as I can see my way by the light of scrip-
ture, through what is confessedly a mysterious and
doubtful subject, I think there is reason to come to the
conclusion, that the notion of archon, or ruling spirits,
as far as regards our own world more especially—
having power, dominion, or jurisdiction over particu-
lar nations or countries, with the exception of the
Jews under the old dispensation, and of Christians
under the new, is not to be indiscriminately applied to
the angels, but to be confined to the evil angels in par-
ticular. Bishop Horsley (p. 377) adverts to the pos-
sibility that the Prince of Persia and the Prince of
Grecia might be angels of this description ; but then,
he contends, they could not in that case be tutelar
angels of Greece or Persia, or of any other country.
And while I allow him his conclusion, that no evil
angel could be a tutelar angel, (which would be a con-
tradiction in terms,) still, if there is any foundation for
the opinion which I have just expressed, it will not
follow that an evil angel, though no tutelar angel,
might not be an archon or ruling angel.
To enter at large upon the reasons which have in-
duced me to form this opinion, would take up too much
time, and would require the review of too many texts
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 577
of scripture, to be at present attempted. I can only
refer to them in a general manner; which, perhaps,
will not be considered to do them justice: but this I
will venture to say, that if the reader of scripture,
and of the New Testament in particular, will take
this persuasion along with him, he will find it throw
a wonderful light upon many obscure passages of
Holy Writ, as well as greatly illustrate the scheme
of human redemption in general.
Now, I think, this mystery or secret of the angelic
world, if I may so call it, is intimated in the allusion
to the fallen angels at Jude 6: which the Bible trans-
lation has rendered, “ The Angels that kept not their
first estate ;” but which would more properly have
been rendered, “‘ The Angels, that kept not their own
dominion”—for the words of the Greek are, ᾿Α'γγέλους
τοὺς μὴ τηρήσαντας τὴν ἑαυτῶν apyyv—wWhere though
ἀρχὴ may denote beginning, it may also denote domin-
ion; and though τηρῆσαι τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀρχὴν may well
be rendered, to keep their own dominion, it cannot
properly be rendered, to keep their own beginning—
which would be just as unnatural a mode of speaking
in Greek as in English. Our translators appear to
have been sensible of this, when, while they rendered
τηρῆσαι by keeping, its natural sense, they softened and
qualified the proper sense of ἀρχὴ, by what they con-
sidered equivalent to beginning; viz. first estate:
which however was not to render, but to paraphrase,
the Greek. To keep their first estate might be an
allowable phrase in our language; but to keep their
beginning was scarcely so.
We find the Tempter, in the presence of our Lord him-
self, and at the time of the third temptation, when he
could not but know the truth of his character and rela-
tion as the Son of the Most High God; claiming to him-
VOL. III. Pp
578 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
' self the disposal of the kingdoms of the world, and the
right of giving them to whom he would ; Matt. iv. 9.
Luke iv. 6: and we do not find our Saviour denying
this right, or disallowing this claim; from which we
cannot but conclude, I think, that it must have been true
in some sense or other—which would argue that he was
so far the Lord of the world in the strictest sense of the
term: particularly too, as he uses such language in
speaking of this right, as not to imply that he claimed
it absolutely as his own, as derived and held from him-
self, but as received in trust, as something which
had been committed to him by another; ὅτι ἐμοὶ ILA-
PAAEAOTAI (se. ἡ ἐξουσία αὕτη ἅπασα) καὶ ᾧ ἐὰν θέλω
δίδωμι αὐτήν.
We find our Saviour on three several occasions de-
scribing this Being, as the ἄρχων τοῦ. κόσμου τούτου :
John xii. 31. xiv. 30. xvi. 11. We find St. Paul apply-
ing the title of archons or rulers of this world, to this
Being and his angels generally; 1 Cor. ii. 6. and 8.
We find the same apostle designating this Being in par-
ticular, as the God τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου: 2 Cor. iv. 3. 4.
We find the same apostle designating him as the ar-
chon of the authority of the air; Ephesians ii. 2: which
is but another way of speaking for the archon τῶν é-
ουσιῶν τῶν ἀερίων : Where while the epithet, aerial, will
describe the seat of their abode, or locality of their resi-
dence, so the appellative, ἐξουσίαι, the abstract being put
for the concrete, will describe the capacity in which they
are supposed to reside and to dwell there collectively ;
viz. in the relation of rulers and superiors of some
kind, and with some jurisdiction or other, which is
most naturally to be presumed to be that of this lower
world, of which the air itself forms a part. We find
the same apostle, describing this Being and his angels
collectively, Ephesians vi. 12, not only as πνευματικὰ
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 579
τῆς πονηρίας, Which defines their nature, or what they
are in themselves, but as ἀρχαὶ and ἐξουσίαι, which
implies their relation to other things, as governing
or authority-having principles in general; and as the
κοσμοκράτορες TOU σκότους TOU αἰῶνος τούτου, Which de-
scribes their relation to this world in the same capacity
in particular, and under a compound designation is
equivalent to ἄρχοντες τοῦ κόσμου, used of them, to ex-
press the same relation before.
It would be easy to multiply testimonies to the same
effect, directly or indirectly, from other passages of
scripture. But these are sufficient to shew what the
established language of sacred writ is, in speaking of
the Devil and his angels, more especially with reference
to this present world and this present state of things,
in connection with which alone we know any thing of
them, or have any interest in their being and agency :
viz. as beings or principles, whose specific relation to
this world is that of ἄρχοντες, ἐξουσίαι, kupidtytes—whose
jurisdiction over it is limited in one respect, and one
only—archons, authorities, rulers, and governors of
this part of the world, whose power and supremacy
extend over all but the people of God as such—the
Jews under the Mosaic dispensation, and the Chris-
tians under the Gospel.
Now this being the case, it is certainly in unison
with that mode of speaking, that the archon of the
kingdom of Persia, and the archon of Greece, should
be mentioned in the Book of Daniel, and the archon
of Tyre in the Book of Ezekiel; and all three as co-
ordinate powers or rulers of this description—or the
two former as subordinate powers, belonging to the
number in general, and the last of them, to judge from
the terms in which he is spoken of, which are much
too magnificent to apply in strict propriety to any but
Pp2
580 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
the most exalted among them, very possibly as the
chief of all, as the head of those powers and rulers in
particular. It is in unison with it, too, that while
Persia and Greece have each their ruler or archon, and
each one opposed to the angel Gabriel, and to his labours
for the good of Daniel and of his people; this people,
too, have their archon or ruler in the person of Mi-
chael, “the prince of princes,” or archon of archons,
(viii. 25.)—one of ihe chief, the first, or the capital ar-
chons or princes, (x. 13.)—the great archon or prince,
(xii. 1.) who holds with Gabriel in this capacity, in be-
half of his people, who stands up for them, in the last
extremity, who fights with ‘those that fight against
them, and treats all as the enemies of himself, who
are the enemies of them.
I have thought it necessary to say thus much, to
vindicate the literal construction of the text of Daniel
in this present instance; especially against so formid-
able an authority as the name of bishop Horsley. But
as to pretending to explain in what way the parties
concerned in this reciprocal warfare, the Prince of
Persia and the Prince of Greece on the one hand, and
the angel Gabriel, and Michael their prince on the
other, discharged their respective parts, the one in op-
posing and thwarting, the other in abetting and pro-
moting, the counsels of God for the good of his people—
it would be to presume to be wise beyond what is
written, were we to attempt to do that. It would be
to pry into secrets, which are inaccessible to the eyes
of flesh. Spiritual enemies must carry on a spiritual
warfare; and a spiritual warfare must be maintained
with spiritual weapons, and by spiritual modes of attack
or defence: concerning which we can know or conceive
but little at present. The influence of spirits indeed upon
agents of a different description, may be called into ac-
Further consideration of Daniel x. 13. 581
tion in the course of such a contest, on both sides:
and though spirits as spirits cannot contend carnally
like flesh and blood, yet they may stir up the arms of
flesh and blood, they may work upon human passions,
and by human passions, in cooperation with themselves,
and make the free agency of men instrumental to
their own proper purposes, whatsoever they be. And
this, which Scripture would teach us to believe, is the
rule of proceeding where spiritual agents are concerned
in conjunction with human, in other instances, there is
no reason to suppose might not have been the case in
the present instance: nor consequently, why one mode,
in which the Prince of Persia might have carried on
his hostility against Gabriel and Michael to the preju-
dice of the people of Daniel, might not have been,
what bishop Horsley supposes, the stirring up enemies
against them in the court of Persia; and so impeding
and delaying the final restitution and settlement of the
country: which indeed appears to have been more or
less the effect, by whatever means brought to pass,
from the time of Cyrus to that of Nehemiah, through
a period of nearly ninety years.
As to the further quesiion, what particular reason
there might be, why the Prince of Javan or Greece
also should be described as making common cause with
the Prince of Persia, in the third of Cyrus, against Ga-
briel and Michael; that too is one of the secrets of Sa-
tan’s kingdom, and of the mode of its administration
at present, about which we are not competent to give
an opinion. We may, however, presume, that among
the various members of such a kingdom and under such
an head, it is reasonable to suppose there should be the
closest union of purpose, and sympathy of feeling; and
that as to Greece and Persia in particular, they were
countries especially conjoined in the counsels of the Di-
Pp3
582 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
vine Providence, and in the future destinies of the world,
as well as of the Jewish or Christian church; the Per- —
sian empire being to be succeeded by the Grecian, and
the Grecian to exercise a considerable influence both for
good and for bad, first over the fortunes of the Jewish
church, and ultimately over those of the Christian; if, as
it would appear from the prophecies of Daniel them-
selves, Antichrist, the great persecutor of the church of
Christ, and antagonist of Christ himself, yet to come,
is destined to arise out of that part of the world which
was once subject to the empire of the Greeks, and
which must be still considered, if any part of the
world can still be considered, to represent the Grecian
empire itself. And lastly, we may observe that if the
true political situation of Persia and Greece, relative
to each other, in the third of Cyrus, B.C. 534, were
fully known; it is not improbable it would actually be
found to throw light upon the reasons of this connec-
tion of the mention of Greece and Persia, in the tenth
chapter of Daniel, with that period in particular.
1 shall conclude these observations, then, with one
or two more remarks; which will complete what I
have to say on the chronology of the Book of Daniel.
The prophet Daniel was brought away captive from
Judzea in the third or fourth of Jehoiachim, B. C. 606.
At that time he is called a child; but the Hebrew
idiom applies the name of child, at any time of life
under the age of manhood; and it is morally certain,
that when Daniel was appointed ruler of the province
of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the
wise men in Babylon, (that is, as bishop Horsley ex-
presses it, president of the college of Magi,)in the second
of Nebuchadnezzar, ii. 1. 48, only three or four years
after his arrival in Babylon, he was nearer thirty than
twenty years of age. Let us suppose him however to
So SY Era Oe
Further consideration of Daniel x. 19. 583
have been only twenty, in the second of Nebuchad-
nezzar, B.C. 603. He would be eighty-nine in the
third of Cyrus, B.C. 534. ‘That he did not accompany
the Jews on their return to Juda, B. C. 536, is cer-
tain; and that one reason of this might be his ad-
vanced age at the time, is not improbable. Yet we
may justly presume that the return itself, at the pre-
cise period marked out by prophecy, in the first of Cy-
rus, might be due in part to the station of Daniel in
the court of Persia, to his reputation in the reign of
Darius, before Cyrus’ accession, and to his influence
with Cyrus himself; the language of whose proclama-
tion or decree, giving permission to the Jews to return,
is such, as could scarcely have been dictated by any
but Daniel himself *.
i. 2; 3.
See 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23: Ezra
If the age of Daniel was more than twenty, B.C.
* Josephus relates, Ant. x. xi.
7, that after the accession of
Darius the Mede, and the deli-
verance of Daniel, recorded in
chapter v. the latter built a
tower or Bapis, at Ecbatana in
Media, of wonderful art and
beauty ; which still existed in his
own time, and had been used ever
after as the regal sepulchre of the
kings of Media, Persia, and Par-
thia, successively ; and from the
first was specially confided to the
keeping of a Jewish priest.
I know not on what authority
this statement is made. But it
is a singular coincidence, that,
according to the Book of Ezra,
vi. 2, when search was com-
manded to be made in the se.
cond of Darius, B.C. 521, for
the original record of the per-
mission of Cyrus to the Jews to
return—a roll was found, it is
said, at Achmetha, in the pa-
lace, that 2s in the province of the
Medes, containing the decree in
question. The Septuagint ren-
ders this, ἐν ᾿Εκβατάνοις τῇ βάρει
τῇ ἐν Μηδείᾳ χώρᾳ: and Josephus
recognises the antiquity of this
reading by transferring the same
statement to his Antiquities, xi:
iv. 6. καὶ εὑρέθη ἐν ’ExBardvos, τῇ
βάρει τῇ ἐν Μηδίᾳ, βιβλίον, καὶ, τ. X.
If this was the original roll, and
kept in a Bdps or tower at Ec-
batana, it would go far to au-
thenticate the tradition that
Daniel built a βάρις there ; and
that this was the tower in ques-
tion. It must be observed, how-
ever, that the word in the He-
brew, which answers to the
Greek, does not properly denote
a citadel, or tower, in that lan-
guage, but a palace: not ara or
turris, but regia.
Pp4&
584 Appendix. Supplement to Dissertation Twelfth.
603, he would be proportionally older, B.C. 534, at the
date of the last of his visions. In the natural course |
of things, it cannot be supposed that he would long
survive his ninetieth year and upwards. And if we
were to conjecture that he died soon after the date of
this vision, we should have apparently the countenance
of the last words of this prophecy itself; which are
such as almost to intimate that the time of his death
was at hand. Ch. xii.9. “ And he said, Go thy way,
Daniel; for the words are closed up and sealed till the
time of the end.” And again, xii. 13: ‘“ But go thou
thy way till the end Je: for thou shalt rest, and stand
in thy lot at the end of the days.” In this case, the
absolute length of time embraced by the Book of Da-
niel, will be from B.C. 606, to B.C. 534: or seventy-
two years in all.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION XIII.
Further Consideration of the Opinions of the most ancient
Christians upon the preceding topics.
Vide Dissertation xiii. vol. i. page 451. line 8—465. last line.
JUSTIN MARTYR—The date which Cassiodorus
assigns to the presentation of the first Apology of Jus-
tin Martyr, is confirmed by the further testimony of
Prosper of Aquitaine; who places it in Chronico*, U.C.
899. That this year was the date of the consulate of
Clarus and Severus, may likewise be shewn by the fol-
lowing coincidence.
The emperor Severus was born vi (corr. 111.) Ides of
April (April 11.) Coss. Erucio Claro ii. et Severo”.
Dio agrees with Spartian as to the day of his birth °;
but he makes him at the time of his death to be sixty-
five years, nine months, and twenty-five days old. Spar-
tian, on the contrary, as his text stands uncorrected, tells
us he did not live one year more than eighty-nine
years’; a manifest error in the statement or reading.
The truth is, as he died early in the month of February,
(Feb. 4,) Ὁ. Ὁ. 964, Dio meant to say that he was sixty-
four years, nine months, and twenty-five days old; and
had he survived to the eleventh of April, he would have
been sixty-five complete. In this case, his birthday was
April 11, U.C. 899, which was consequently the year
of theconsulate of Clarus and Severus.
If we institute a search for notes of time, inte the
ες ὃ Operum 712. Ὁ Spartian, Severus, 1. ¢ lxxvi. 17. a Vita, 22.
Yet Pescennius Niger, 5. the same statement is repeated. '
586 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
Apology of Justin itself; it must be acknowledged
that none occurs there, which is very distinct and defi- —
nite: yet what there are rather favour the supposition
that it was presented early in the reign of Antoninus,
than the contrary. With respect to the persons, ad-
dressed in the opening sentence, Titus A‘lius Hadria-
nus Antoninus Pius Augustus Cesar, or emperor,
and Verissimus his son the Philosopher, and Lucius
the Philosopher, the son of Czsar by nature, and of
Pius by adoption; all the difficulty respecting them is
done away, if by the Czesar who is spoken of as natu-
rally the father. of Lucius, we understand L. Alius
Verus Cesar, deceased; whom Hadrian adopted about
U.C. 889 or 890, and upon his death, January 1, U.C.
891°, adopted Antoninus Pius; on condition that An-
toninus Pius himself should adopt Marcus Aurelius and
Lucius Verus; the former the son of Annius Verus,
the brother of Annia Galeria Faustina, the wife of
Antoninus Pius; the latter the son of AUlius Verus Ce-
sar, deceased. Such is the true account of these seve-
ral adoptions; as it might be proved from the testi-
mony of contemporary writers, Aristides, Galen, Dio,
and others *: though Capitolinus in his Life of Mar-
cus Antoninus Philosophus, and of Verus Imperator ‘,
supposes Marcus adopted by Pius, and Verus by Mar-
cus. But Spartian in his Life of Hadrian 8, if not of
* To these we may add Mar-
cus Antoninus himself, De Re-
bus suis, i. 14.17, and apud
Frontonis Opera Inedita, Epp.
ad Marcum Cesarem, i. 5: the
emperor Julian, in Cesaribus,
Operum 312. A: ἐπεισελθούσης
δὲ αὐτῷ τῆς τῶν ἀδελφῶν ξυνωρίδος,
Βήρου καὶ Λουκίου, K, t.X; Zosi-
mus, 110. 1. ἡ τῶν ἀδελφῶν ξυνωρὶς,
Βῆρος καὶ Λούκιος : Aurelius Victor,
De Marco: Ammianus Marcelli-
nus, xxvii. 6: and the Letters of
Verus and Fronto, e libro citato:
Ep. 4. p-85: 4. p. 87, 89: 6.
p: 96: 7. p. 96, 97.
e Vide the coins of Sinope, Eckhel, ii. 393. and Spartian, Hadrianus, 26. 1.
f Antoninus, 5. Verus, 2. Cf. however, Antoninus, 7. Verus, 3.
& 24. Cf. also
Severus, 20. Verus Cesar, 5, 6, 7. Capitolinus, Antoninus Pius, 4.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 587
Alius Verus Cesar, and Capitolinus himself in that of
Antoninus Pius, are more agreeable to the truth. The
precise year of this double adoption may be uncertain,
whether U.C. 891 or 8925. The coins of Marcus Au-
relius, as Cesar, appear first, U. C. 892,
The name of Verissimus, by which Marcus is de-
signated in the above passage, was given to him by
Hadrian before he assumed the toga virilis**; which
he did, U. C. 888, in his fifteenth year!. And though
after that assumption, Hadrian is said to have called
him Annius Verus; yet there is extant a coin of Tyra,
a city of Sarmatia Europea, which has upon it the
head of M. Aurelius, and the name Verissimus Ce-
sar™; consequently after the time of his adoption it-
self, U. C. 892.
At the end of the Apology, Hadrian’s rescript to Mi-
nucius Fundanus is quoted, and given at full length”:
a rescript, which Jerome, in Chronico, dates in the
tenth of Hadrian, and Eusebius, Chronicon Armeno-
Latinum, in the eighth. In one passage, we have a
general allusion to some existing law against castra-
tion °—which Domitian, Nerva?, and Hadrian, each
at different times forbade: in another to the death
and deification of Antinous, spoken of as τοῦ νῦν “γεγε-
νημένου 4, the time of which, as I shall have occasion to
prove hereafter, came between the eleventh and the
* Dio or Xiphilinus, lxix. 21.
implies that he gave him the
name when he caused him to be
adopted by Antoninus. Accord-
ing to Herodian, i. 1, the name
of Verissimus was given to one
of Marcus’ sons—Annius Verus,
h See Capitolinus, Antoninus Ph. 1. 5. 7.
m Eckhel, ii. 4.
P Cf. Dio, Ixvii. 2. lxviii. 2: Cassiodorus, Chronica, the
linus, Vita, 1, 4. 1 Ibid.
o P. 47. 1. 6—r14.
as I should suppose—no men-
tion being made of any other
son of Marcus, but this one so
named, and Commodus. Marcus
is called Verissimus Cesar, by |
Jerome, in Chronico, ad annum
Abrahami 2162. Antonini Pii ix.
i Eckhel, vii. 44. k Capito-
n Page 99. line 13—100. 1. 23.
first of Domitian: Ammianus Marcellinus, xviii. 4: Eusebius and Jerome, Chro-
nica, ad annum Abrahami 2098 or 2099.
qa P. 47.1. 19.
588 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
fifteenth of Hadrian: in other passages, to the Jewish
war, &c. Barchochab’s persecution of the Christians ;
the destruction of Jerusalem; and the consequences of
the war to the Jews; all as still recent events". That
war was brought to a close U.C. 888, or 889.
In other passages, the heretic Marcion of Pontus is
spoken of as still living, and still disseminating his
doctrines, when Justin was writing the Apology’. He
speaks also of a work of his own against all the here-
sies, which up to that time had appeared in the Chris-
tian world, to which he refers the emperorst. That
Marcion’s heresy was included among the rest, may
very probably be collected both from the title of the
work, and because Justin’s treatise against Marcion is
quoted ῥητῶς by Irenzeus *.
The precise time of the rise of the heresy of Mar-
cion, may be doubtful; further than that the most an-
cient authorities make it contemporary with the reign
of Antoninus Pius, and with the bishopric of Hyginus,
whom Eusebius * places in the first of Antoninus, and
supposes to have sate only four years. Tertullian, Con-
tra Marcionem *, i. 19, says indeed: Quoto quidem anno
Antonini Majoris de Ponto suo exhalaverit aura cani-
cularis, non curavi investigare: de quo tamen constat,
Antoninianus heereticus est, sub Pio impiusY. Yet
just before he says: Anno xv. Tiberii Christus Jesus de
celo manare dignatus est, spiritus salutaris; Marcionis
salutis, qui ita voluit: (where he is speaking according
r P. 49. 1. 27: 70. 31—71.8: 78. 15. s P. 43. 1. 1: 85- 15—30. Cf. Euse-
bius, E. H. iv. 11. 125. B. t P. 44. 1. u Lib. iv. xiv. 300. 14. Cf. v.
xxvi. 441. 21. which Eusebius, E. H. iv. t8. 141. A. shews to be a quotation from
it also. Vide also Tertullian, Operum ii. 149. Adversus Valentinianos, 5 : Hiero-
nymus, de SS. Ecclesiasticis, cap. 23: Photius, Bibl. Codex 125. w E. Η.
iv. 10. 11.125. A. x Operum i. 33. y Cf. Ireneus, i. xxviii. 103.
xxix. 104: iii. 111. 204 : iv. 206.1.g: Clemens Alex. ii. 898. Strom. vii. 17:
Opinions of the most ancicnt Christians. 589
to the opinions of Marcion ; as we learn from lib. iv. 7.
p- 197: Anno quintodecimo principatus Tiberii, propo-
nit eum descendisse in civitatem Galileeze Capharnaum:
which was probably the beginning of St. Luke’s Gos-
pel according to Marcion.) Immediately after, he con-
tinues: A Tiberio autem usque ad Antoninum anni
fere CXV et dimidium anni, cum dimidio mensis: tan-
tumdem temporis ponunt inter Christum et Marci-
onem. :
I think this computation is intended to bear date
from Tiberii xv. U. C. 781-782, the time of the mani-
. festation of Christ according toe Marcion; in which
case, 116 current years bring us to U. C. 896-897: as
the age most probably intended by Tertullian for Mar-
cion himself. For, as this interval of time cannot pos-
sibly hold good between the beginning of the reign of
Tiberius and that of Antoninus Pius; nor between
the close of the one, and the beginning or the end of
the other, respectively—of what must it be understood,
if not of the manifestation of the Christ on the one
hand, and the appearance of Marcion on the other?
On this principle, there would still be time for Justin to
have written against Marcion, though he presented his
Apology U.C. 899: especially as the doctrines of Mar-
cion were broached at Rome, where the Apology was
presented *, and where, according to Epiphanius, Joc.
cit. Marcion became the disciple of Cerdo, immediately
after Hyginus’ death, which Eusebius places U.C.895.+
* For some more particulars
concerning Marcion, see Tertul-
lian, Operum 11. 35. De Prescri-
ptione Hereticorum, p. 30. It is
however to be observed, that Je-
rome, De Scriptoribus Ecclesi-
asticis, loco citato, distinguishes
the work against Marcion from
that against heresies in general.
There is no reason, therefore,
why the former might not have
been written after the latter.
+ Both Eusebius in his Eccle-
siastical History, and Jerome,
De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis,
mention a multitude of writers
against Marcion; the time of all
of whom accords to the suppo-
590 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
In the second Apology of Justin, as it is commonly
called, there are fewer notes of time than in the first. —
Jerome, and Photius, speak of this as presented to the
successors of Antoninus Pius, which means, to Marcus
Aurelius and Lucius Verus?: but Justin himself, in
one passage of it*, apostrophizes the reigning emperor,
in the second person; and consequently shews it to be
some one person, in particular, who was king, even
though others in some sense might be associated with
him: in which case the Apology was presented either
to Antoninus Pius, or to Marcus Aurelius after the
death of Verus; that is, not before the ninth or tenth
year of his reign *. :
There is no allusion in this second Apology, to the
first; which may justly be considered surprising if it
was really written after it: for we find Justin referring
in the Dialogus, (a work which was probably com-
posed in the reign of Hadrian >,) to some address of
his, which had been presented to the reigning emperor
—who in that case must have been Hadrian; in which
he had not spared his own countrymen the Sama-
ritans®. I should be disposed to believe that this Apo-
recorded by Irenzus, of Polycarp
and him, if true, proves that
Marcion’s heresy was older than
Polycarp’s martyrdom, A. D.
sition that the heresy in ques-
tion first appeared under Anto-
ninus Pius. These writers flou-
rished principally in the reign of
his successor, the first of them,
next to Justin Martyr, being
Theophilus bishop of Antioch.
The heretic Marcion was known
to Celsus the Epicurean; the
date of whose work, answered
by Origen, was early in the reign
of Antoninus Pius. Theanecdote
164, and probably than his visit
to Rome, under Anicetus. Ire-
nexus, 111. cap. 111. 204, &c.
* Kusebius, Εἰ. Η. iv. 18. 140.
A. accordingly supposes it to be
addressed to Antoninus Verus,
the successor of Antoninus Pius.
z Photius, Codex 125. p. 94. Hieronymus, Operum iv. pais 118, 110. De SS.
Ecclesiasticis, 23. Cf. 656. ad principium. ®P.109.1.3. Ὁ Cf. Pars it. 137,
21.155. 6.169. 2. Add to which, that, 153. 3. 436. 32. the work is dedicated to
Marcus Pompeius ; whom Grabe conjectures to be the same Marcus who was the
first Gentile bishop of Jerusalem; that is, after the close of the Jewish war. See
Eusebius, E. H. iv. 6. 119. A. v. 12. 176. D. ¢ Page 397. 4.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 591
logy, though commonly considered the second, was in
reality something prior to the former. It is, as we
now possess it, manifestly an imperfect production ; the
beginning of which has been lost, though the conclu-
sion is probably entire. And there is at the end of it
a very significant allusion to Antoninus Pius, and his
two sons—both of whom the first Apology designates
by the title of Philosophers; which is sufficient to
prove, that these three were reigning in conjunction at
the time of this address, as well as at that of the former:
εἴη οὖν καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀξίως EvoeBeias καὶ Φιλοσοφίας τὰ δίκαια
A plurality of rulers, too, is im-
plied in the following passage, just before: καὶ ὑμᾶς οὖν
ἀξιοῦμεν ὑπογράψαντας τὸ ὑμῖν δοκοῦν προθεῖναι τουτὶ τὸ
βιβλίδιον ©: notwithstanding which, some one of them
might still be addressed as the supreme governor, or
emperor as such; which is the case in the passage re-
ferred to above*.
There is mention made in this treatise of Musonius
the philosopher, ἐν τοῖς καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς; that is, ds a con-
temporary of the writer’s: which can scarcely be un- —
derstood of the philosopher of that name, whom Ta-
citus, Philostratus, Suidas, and others +, prove to have
e A e nw “-
ὑπερ εαυτῶν κριναι d,
* If, indeed, this second Apo- __testas, may be doubtful. Why
logy was written soon after the
matter of fact happened, which
gave occasion to it, (see 106. i.
564.) then 110. 21-25. in the
- course of that narrative, seems
clearly to recognise Antoninus
Pius, as the reigning emperor ;
and only one other person as as-
sociated in the mention with
him, whom it calls φιλοσόφου or
φιλοσόφῳ Καίσαρος παιδί. This
must be M. Aurelius as such:
whether before or after he was
invested with the tribunitia po-
a P. 135. 2.
e P. 133. 13.
should not this second apology,
as it is called, have been written
and presented to Antoninus
Pius, about the fourth of his
reign, U. C. 894, where Euse-
bius and Jerome, in Chronico,
place the first? and the first
about the ninth, U. C. 899.
where Cassiodorus places it Ὁ
t Cf. Dio, Ixvi. 13. Pliny,
Epp. iii. 11. vii. 31. (which to-
gether ascertain his name to
have been C. Musonius Bassus ;
though Jerome, Chronicon, ad
f P. 118. 22.
592
flourished in the reigns of Nero and Vespasian*.
Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
But.
Origen also contra Celsum®, speaks of a Musonius,
whom he describes as one τῶν χθὲς καὶ πρώην “γεγονότων :
who was, most probably, this contemporary of Jus-
tins +. The Apology begins with an abrupt reference
Titi ii. calls him Musonius Ru-
fus. So Dio lxii. 27.)—Julian
Opera, 265. C. D. ad Themis-
tium: Eusebius and Jerome in
Chronico: Eunapius, vite Sophi-
starum, Procemium, p.3. The
sect which this Musonius fol-
lowed was the Cynic.
* Suidas, voce Κορνοῦτος, in
his account of Cornutus the phi-
losopher of Leptis in Africa,
says he was put to death by
Nero, along with the abovemen-
tioned Musonius; and he re-
peats this statement of Muso-
nius’ being put to death by Nero,
under Μουσώνιος. But the truth
is, that Nero did not put either
Cornutus or Musonius, his con-
temporary, to death, but only
banished them, see Dio, Ixii. 27,
and 29. and Jerome, Chronicon,
162, ad Neronis xiv: as might be
collectedindeed from Suidas’very
account, in the extract from Ju-
lian, inthe last of these instances.
The same conclusion would fol-
low from the history of Cornu-
tus, in conjunction with that of
Persius, the satirist, whose pre-
ceptor he was: see Satira v.
Suidas, voce Πωλίων, Asinius Pol-
lio, whose acme is placed in the
time of Pompey the Great, is yet
made a contemporary of Muso-
nius the philosopher, if not later
than he: the former of which is
barely possible, but the latter is
impossible. Another Pollio, how-.
ever, is mentioned directly after.
+ Philostratus, in his Life of
Herodes Atticus, Vite Sophi-
starum ii. 555. B. mentions Mu-
sonius the Tyrian, as the pre-
ceptor of Lucius, the philoso-
pher, one of the contemporaries
and friends of Herodes; who
must have been contemporary
with Justin. Aristides, also,
Ἱερῶν λόγων ς΄. Oratio xxviii.
551. mentions a Musonius, ap-
parently as one of his contem-
poraries—who was probably the
same person.
It appears in fact from Suidas,
Ἑρμογένης, that Hermogenes of
Tarsus was the preceptor of a
Musonius, the philosopher, who
must have been contemporary
with the emperor Marcus, be-
cause Marcus himself also was
among the hearers of Hermo-
genes ; who yet, it appears, could
have had no hearers or disciples
after he was twenty-five years
of age. Cf. the Vite Sophi-
starum of Philostratus, ii. 575.
Hermogenes,—from whom Suidas
quotes his account of the Her-
mogenes in question. We may
conclude that this Musonius
was Musonius the Tyrian, as
well as the contemporary of
Justin. The Musonius men-
tioned by Eunapius, Vite Sophi-
starum, 92. Prozresius, as a con-
temporary of Prozresius, must
have been a totally different per-
son. Of this Musonius, also, see
Suidas, in Μουσώνιος, and Vale-
sius, ad Ammianum Marcel-
linum, xxvii. 9: whence it ap-
pears that the date of his death
was A. D. 368, in the reign of
Valentinian the First.
Jerome
& Lib. iii. 66. Operum i. 491. B.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians.
593
to a fact which had happened under the mayoralty of
Urbicus, not long before, χθὲς δὲ καὶ πρώην.
At what
time any Urbicus was Urbis Prefectus unfortunately
is not exactly known*.
Jerome in Chronico, places
the acme of a writer (whom he
calls Musanus, and Eusebius’
Chronicon Armeno-Latinum Mu-
sianus, and Syncellus Μουσιανὸς,
i. 670. 1.) in the twelfth of Seve-
rus. His true name indeed was
Musanus. But he was a Christian
writer, not a Gentile philosopher;
and besides would be too late
for Justin Martyr, were it not
that Jerome, De Scriptoribus
Ecclesiasticis, xxxi. Operum iv.
Pars ἰδ. 111, enumerates him
among those who wrote against
the Encratite, or followers of
Tatian, (a disciple of Justin :)
sub Imperatore M. Antonino
Vero. Cf. Eusebius, E. H. iv.
21.28: and Theodorit, Hereti-
carum Fabularum i. 21. Operum
iv. 313. His acme, according to
these testimonies, would certain-
ly be the reign of M. Aurelius,
Commodus, or Severus. The
Musonius, contemporary of Nero
and Vespasian, or the Musonius,
who flourished in the reign of
M. Aurelius, is most probably
the one alluded to by name, in
Himerius, Oratio xxiii. §. 21.
p: 802.
* The name of Lollius Urbi-
eus, as Urbis Prefectus, or
mayor of the city of Rome, oc-
curs in the extant Oratio of
Apuleius, De Magia, (Opera,
vol, ii. p. 5.) and he is spoken of
there as V. C. Vir Consularis,
also, at the time when that ora-
tion was delivered. ;
It would take up too much
A Lollius Urbicus is spoken
time, and after all would proba-
bly prove avery uninteresting dis-
cussion to the reader, were I to
enter upon a detailed analysis
of this speech. It is sufficient
to observe, respecting it, that it
was delivered by Apuleius in
answer to the charge of having
gained the affections of one Pu-
dentilla, arich widow, of (δὰ in
Africa, by magical charms and
incantations, and so persuaded
her tomarry him. The time of
this marriage, it might be made
to appear, was the year after
Apuleius’ coming to Cia, on his
way to Alexandria; Pudentilla
having then been thirteen years
complete a widow; and being
about forty years of age. The
proconsul of Africa, at the time
of the marriage, was Lollianus
Avitus ; and Apuleius was once
heard beforethis proconsul, upon
the charge preferred against him
by the surviving relations of Pu-
dentilla’s first husband—at Car-
thage—a short time after his
marriage; consequently in the
same year with that event. The
extant Oratio de Magia was de-
livered .at a second hearing of
the same accusation and defence,
before Claudius Maximus, who
it seems succeeded Lollianus
Avitus in the proconsulate. This
it appears was in the third year,
since Apuleius first arrived at
(Ea; consequently, it was in the
year after his marriage; and
Claudius Maximus must have
followed Avitus directly in the
h Page 106. 1+-107. 21.
VOL. III.
Qq
594
Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
-of by Capitolinus, as Antoninus’ legate in Britain‘,
during a war which does not appear to have extended
government of Africa. That the
proconsulate of Africa was an
annual office at this time appears
further from the Floridaof Apu-
leius, vol. ii. 123, 124.
Whether Claudius Maximus
here mentioned is the same per-
son with Gavius Maximus, pre-
fectus pretorii under Antoninus
Pius, according to Capitolinus,
(Vita, 8.) is doubtful ; especially
as this last is said to have been
twenty years in office as pre-
fectus pretorii, under Antoninus
Pius. The name of Cavius Ma-
ximus occurs in Frontonis Opera
inedita, Epp. ad Antoninum, iv.
pars i. p. 10, and a letter to Lol-
lianus Avitus, ibid. 131. Epp.
ad Amicos, ii. Avitus and Ma-
ximus, however, who thus suc-
ceeded each other in the pro-
consulate of Africa, it seems
from the Fasti Consulares were
consuls ordinarw together U. C.
897. A.D. 144. in the seventh
of Antoninus Pius. It appears
too from the oration that they
were personal friends. How
long after their consulate the
first of them was in office as pro-
consul, is matter of uncertainty.
The oration before Maximus
was pronounced when Pius was
still emperor ; as appears from
an allusion to his statue, before
which the proceedings took
place. Anciently, we know that
the usual interval between the
consulate and the proconsulate
was five or six years at least;
and it could scarcely be less at
this time of day. If so, Avitus
was probably not in office before
U. C. 904 or 905 at least.
It is not easy to ascertain the
precise interval of time which
would probably intervene be-
tween the consulate and procon-
sulate in a given instance. It
was liable to vary, and doubt-
less did vary, at different periods
of Roman history. I should be
inclined, however, to think that
as it had once been five or six, it
was now about seven or eight
years. We may arrive at this
conclusion on probable grounds
as follows.
In Tacitus’ Life of Agricola,
cap. 42. an allusion occurs to
the time, when, in the due course
of things, Agricola who was con-
sul U.C. 830, (cap. 9. and vide
the Fasti Consulares) Proconsu-
latum....sortiretur. This time
may not be exactly defined ; but
it seems it was later or not ear-
lier than the date of Agricola’s
return from Britain, U.C. 838
or 839. (see capp. 9. 18. 20-25.
28-33. 39, 40.) and from cap.
45, we may infer it was not less
than four years before Agricola’s
death, which (cap. 44.) bore date
U.C. 846. For my own part,
I should apprehend that the
time in question was this very
year of Agricola’s return, U. C.
838: and that one reason of
his resigning the command in
Britain, was that he might
Ex more provinciam sortiri, by
returning home. The life of
Agricola is not very exact in
point of chronology. The con-
text of capp. 41, 42. compared
with Dio, lvii. and Suetonius’
Domitian, will imply that the
year of the sortitio in question
i-Vita, 5.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians.
beyond the third year of his reign *.
595
An Orphitus is
mentioned as preefect sometime under the same empe-
was as probably U.C. 838, as
any. If so, Agricola’s turn for
the proconsulate either was, or
should have been, just eight
years after the expiration of his
consulate.
The same conclusion may be
generally inferred from Herodian
vii. 10: where it appears that
Gordian the elder was procon-
sul of Africa, A. ἢ. 237. The
Fasti shew that he was consul
suff. once ex kalendis Martiis
A. Ὁ. 213, and again, A. ἢ). 229.
If so, he was serving the office
of proconsul in Africa, either
twenty-four years after his first
consulate, or eight years after
his second ; the latter of which
is much the more probable sup-
position: Cf. Capitolinus, Gor-
dianus, 2.4.5. Inany case, hewas
serving the office of proconsul a
certain number of years, eight
or a multiple of eight, after the
date of his consulate.
The same rule existed in the
time of Nero. Marcus Junius
Silanus was serving the office of
proconsul of Asia, post consu-
jlatum, U. C. 807, when he was
poisoned by order of Agrippina
immediately after Nero’s acces-
sion: Oct. 13. U.C. 807. Pliny,
H.N. vii. 11. Tacitus, Annales,
xiii. 1. Now M. Junius Silanus
was consul ordinarius, U.C. 799,
whence to U.C. 807, is just
eight years, exclusive of the year
of the consulate.
Avitus’ year of office coincided,
as it appeared, with the date of
Apuleius’ marriage, as that of
Maximus did with the date of
his extant oration, de Magia.
Before this oration was deliver-
ed, the principal party in bring-
ing forward the accusation against
which it is directed, Sicinius
/Emilianus, (a brother in law of
Pudentilla, that is, the brother
of her former husband,) is
charged by Apuleius with having
attempted to set aside the will
of his avunculus, or maternal
uncle, at Rome, on the pretence
of forgery; the cause having
been heard and determined be-
fore Lollius Urbicus, at that
time urbis prefectus,
This allusion certainly proves
the mayoralty of Urbicus to
have come before the procon-
sulate of Maximus, and we may
justly presume of Avitus; but
how long, appears uncertain. I
cannot help thinking, however,
that as the son of Pudentilla,
Pontianus, (whose name is often
mentioned in the course of this
oration, first as the personal
friend and acquaintance of Apu-
leius, by whose advice and en-
treaty he was persuaded to
marry his mother, and then, as
one of his adversaries or ac-
cusers, who took part in the
charge against him,) appears to
have been at. Rome at the very
time when Pudentilla, his mo-
ther, in the fourteenth year of
her widowhood, had conceived
the determination of marrying
again, (as it is supposed, because
her health required it,) and was
summoned thence by a letter of
his mother to C£a ; he was there
upon this business, connected
with the will of his mother’s
brother in law’s maternal uncle.
k Eckhel, vii. 14. Cf. Capitolinus, Vita, 5. 6.
Qq 2
596 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
‘ ror, and as superseded at his own request!: which
might be by Urbicus. The mention of Urbicus by
name may, perhaps, imply that he was prefect not
only when the incident in question happened, but
when the Apology was written; and had not yet been
superseded by any other, in that office; whether he
was so afterwards or not. If the Acta of Justin are to
be credited, when he himself suffered, one Rusticus
was preefect: and in this respect the Acta are con-
firmed by Epiphanius ™ *.
And this is not improbable—for
this maternal uncle of Sicinius
/Emilianus in point of age would
be a contemporary of his own
avus, or grandfather ; and this
grandfather was only just dead,
when Pudentilla determined to
marry again.
Now this determination, as
we have seen, was formed not
long before Apuleius came to
(δὰ; and that was, only in the
third year before the oration
was delivered. If so, the in-
quiry at Rome, before Urbicus,
into the authenticity of the will,
was going on only three or four
years, at the utmost, before the
Oratiode Magia was pronounced:
and if this oration was pro-
nounced when Claudius Maxi-
mus was proconsul, not long
after U.C. 905, perhaps Urbi-
cus was actually in office, in or
before U.C. got. This is the
nearest approximation to the
date of his mayoralty, that I am
able to make.
We have him mentioned by
name, it is true, in the Opera
inedita of Fronto, pars il. 301,
302. in the fragment of the Ora-
tio pro Volumnio Sereno, there
1 Capitolinus, Vita, 8.
A. B. Tatiani, i.
preserved—as having been gover-
nor of the Regio Veneta, some
time before Arrius Antoninus, to
whom that oration is addressed
—some time before the death of
the emperor Verus (page 301.)
and probably within five years of
the time when that oration was
penned (see page 308.) But all
this belongs no doubt to the
reign of Marcus Aurelius.
As Capitolinus, Vita Anto-
nini Pii, 8. mentions that Anto-
ninus made it a rule not to su-
persede any magistrate or officer
of state, under him, so long as
he continued to acquit himself
well in the discharge of his du-
ties, this is another reason for
supposing that Urbicus succeed-
ed to Orphitus, as urbis pre-
fectus ; and more probably early
in the reign of Antoninus, than
late. It would also imply that,
once appointed to that office, he
might continue to exercise it un-
til late in the emperor’s reign.
* Dio or Xiphilinus, Ixxi. 35.
and Capitolinus, Vita, 3. men-
tion a Junius Rusticus, as one
of the emperor Marcus’ teachers
in philosophy : and eminently ho-
noured by him. He might be this
τῇ Acta Martyrum 58. 1. 59. 2. Epiphanius, i. 391.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 597
There is a presentiment in this Apology that the
death of the writer would some time or other be
brought to pass through the machinations of Crescens,
his enemy"; which misgiving the Oratio of Tatian,
ad Gentes, (a contemporary and disciple of Justin’s,)
shews to have been in all probability realized by the
event®. Yet Tatian speaks in the same work of phi-
losophers, who received an annual pension of six hun-
dred gold pieces from the emperor : and as he mentions
only one emperor, it is possible he may mean Antoni-
nus Pius; particularly as Capitolinus tells us of this
emperor, Rhetoribus et philosophis per omnes provin-
cias honores et salaria detulit P *.
urbis prefectus, and he would
flourish under Antoninus Pius.
The same person, apparently, is
thrice mentioned by Marcus An-
toninus, De Rebus suis, as one
of his instructors; lib. i. 7. and
17. It appears from Capitoli-
nus, loco citato, that he died be-
fore Marcus, and as we may
collect, in the year when he was
designated by him consul the
second time. His first consulate
was A. D. 162. in the second of
Marcus. He had probably been
urbis prefectus before this time:
in which case, if Justin suffered
under him in that capacity, he
suffered in the reign of Anto-
ninus Pius.
* Lucian, Operum ii. 352.
Eunuchus, 3, speaks of a salary
appointed by the emperor then
reigning, for philosophers of all
the sects, indiscriminately, of
10,000 drachme per annum ;
which is two thirds of Tatian’s
sum of 600 aurei. Some of
n P: 120. 6.
P Vita, 11.
Lucian’s commentators suppose
this emperor was M. Aurelius ;
but he might just as well be An-
toninus Pius; for Lucian flou-
rished under both. Marcus Au-
relius certainly made the same
allowance ; but it might be only
in imitation of what Antoninus
had done.
From an obscure allusion in
Suidas’ account of Aristocles, a
sophist of Pergamus, whom he
describes as having flourished
under Trajan and Hadrian, it
might be inferred that some pro-
vision for the maintenance of the
sophists and philosophers, out of
the privy purse, existed in the
time of the latter. Jerome, in
Chronico, ad Domitiani viii.
tells us that Quintilian was the
first of the professors of Rhetoric
at Rome, Qui salarium e fisco
accepit, and that in the reign of
Domitian: as indeed it were
easy to collect from various pas-
sages in his own Institutiones,
ὁ Cap. 32. Cf. 31. Cf. Eusebius, E. H. iv. xvi. 136, 137.
See also το. and Dio, Ixxi. 35.
Qq 3
598
Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
Though Tatian is described in ecclesiastical history
as an heeresiarch, and as the founder of the sect of the
(seeiv. Procemium, 2,) must have
been the case. A public provi-
sion for the sophists, philoso-
phers, and learned of the age, in
general, though not necessarily
in the shape of an annual salary,
yet of a daily maintenance, was,
in fact, of much earlier date
than the reign of either of the
Antonines. Philostratus, in his
Life of Dionysius of Miletus,
Vite Sophistarum, i. 524. C. D.
tells us that among other ho-
nours conferred upon him by
Hadrian, his contemporary, one
was his incorporating him with
τοῖς ev τῷ Μουσείῳ σιτουμένοις. τὸ δὲ
Μουσεῖον, he proceeds, τράπεζα
Αἰγυπτία, ξυγκαλοῦσα τοὺς ἐν πάσῃ
τῇ γῇ ἐλλογίμους. The same dis-
tinction was awarded by Hadrian
to the sophist Polemo also;
Vite Sophistarum, i. 532. B.C.
This allusion tothe Museum, and
to the privilege in question, is il-
lustrated by Spartian, Hadrianus,
20: Suetonius, Claudius, 42. §.
7: and Strabo, xvii. 1. ὃ. 8. 503.
whence it appears to have been
an institution as old as the time
of the Ptolemies. The Museum
was situated in Alexandria, in
that part of the city which went
by the name of the Bruchium ;
a distinguished college or semi-
nary of learned men in every de-
partment. Cf. Ammianus Marcel-
linus, Lib. xxii. 16, 343, whocalls
it Diuturnum preestantium homi-
num domicilium. Eusebius and
Jerome, in Chronico, record its
destruction in the first of Clau-
dius, A. D. 268 or 269, probably
in consequence of the war be-
tween the Romans and Zenobia,
to whom Egypt was subject pre-
viously. Ammianus, loco citato,
perhaps more correctly places its
destruction under Aurelian.
Philostratus, Vite Sophista-
rum, i. 526. C. the first to pre-
side over the Sophists’ throne
at Athens, was Lollianus: though
whether for a stipend or not,
does not appear. From what is
afterwards related of Theodo-
tus, a pupil of his, the latter is
more probable. It appears, how-
ever, from the same authority,
ii. 565. A. B., that the first of
the emperors who made provi-
sion for the payment of the so-
phists at Athens, in particular,
was Marcus Aurelius. It ap-
pears too, that the salary ap-
pointed there for the public in-
structors of the youth, was just
this sum of 10,000 drachme,
expressed in Greek by μυρίαε,
or ἐπὶ μυρίαις: in reference to
which we meet with the follow-
ing allusions in Philostratus ;
first, Vitze Sophistarum, ii. 565.
A. de Theodoto: προέστη δὲ καὶ τῆς
a > , , ΄“ ΝΥΝ
“τῶν Αθηναίων νεότητος πρῶτος ἐπὶ
ταῖς ἐκ βασιλέως μυρίαις : and again,
ibid. 588. A. de Chresto: οὐχ
ai μυρίαι τὸν ἄνδρα. The ellipsis
in each instance is δραχμαῖς or
δραχμαί ; the time of the first of
these allusions being, as it ap-
pears, the reign of Marcus, and
that of the second in particular,
early in the reign of Commo-
dus.
In the reign of Severus, Apol-
lonius of Athens is mentioned
by Philostratus, as presiding
over the θρόνος πολιτικὸς ἐπὶ τα--:
λάντῳ : 11. 507. ΑΨ. Β.Ο. Ifthe
office thus designated was the
same as that of the sophist in
599
Opinions of the most ancient Christians.
Encratite ; yet it is also agreed that he did not fall
away before the death of Justin, his master. Epipha-
nius supposes Justin to have suffered in the time of
Hadrian; (which is palpably false;) and in the thir-
-tieth year of his age—which probably is not less erro-
neous 4; but what he further supposes, viz. that Ta-
tian his disciple founded his sect in the neighbourhood
of Antioch in Syria, about the twelfth of Antoninus
Pius; may possibly be true. The twelfth of Anto-
ninus would begin, U. C. 902, at which time, or soon
after it, Justin might be dead. We know no more on
this subject, from Tatian’s Oratio ad Gentes, than that
it was written after the death of Justin, when the
writer himself either then was, or had been previously
at Rome". Prosper in Chronico places Justin’s mar-
_ tyrdom, U.C. 911, and the heresy of Tatian, U. C.
924. Eusebius in Chronico places the former event
about the fifteenth of Antoninus, U.C. 905*. Jerome in
the time of Marcus, the salary
of the office had been diminished
by the reign of Severus; for
one talent was scarcely two
thirds of 10,000 drachme. It
would be easy to illustrate the
continuance of the office of so-
phist, in the principal cities of
the empire, and of a salary,
greater or less, attached to it,
thr- "gh the reigns of succeeding
emperors down to the time of
Constantine. We find mention
made of the payment of a talent,
or ἐπὶ μυρίαις, by individuals, for
the privilege of hearing particu-
lar sophists ; as, for instance, by
Damianus of Ephesus, in order
to become the disciple of Ari-
stides of Smyrna, and Hadrian
of Ephesus: Philostratus, ii.
602. A. B.
In later times, many curious
particulars might be collected
from Eunapius’ Lives of the
Sophists, to illustrate the above
observations. See especially, his
Proeresius, 74. 79. 89. Cf. Ju-
lianus, 68. 69. 73. Maximus,
52: and Suidas, in Aldecia,
* Yet in his Ecclesiastical
History he dates the martyrdom
of Justin about the same time
with that of Polycarp ; viz. the
seventh of M. Aurelius: E. H.iv.
xvi. 136. B. Cf. also iv. xxix.
xxx. which places the acme of Ta-
tian in the reign of M. Aurelius.
ᾳ Operum i. 391. A—D. Tatiani, i. Cf, Theodorit. Operum iv. 311. Hereti-
carum Fabularum i. 20.
r Cap. 56.
Qq 4
600 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
᾿ Chronico places the death of Justin in the thirteenth of
Antoninus Pius, and Tatian’s heresy in the twelfth of
Marcus Aurelius’, in which year Eusebius on the con-
trary, places the rise of Montanism, or the Cataphry-
gian heresy. Notwithstanding this difference of dates,
for the time of the death of Justin, or for that of the
rise of the sect of the Encratitz, I see no reason to
question our original position ; which is the supposed
date of Justin’s first Apology, U. C. 899.
[πεν £US—That our Lord was baptized at thirty ;
that the preceding thirty years of his life were spent
in inactivity ; that his ministry lasted ove year; are
opinions repeatedly ascribed by Irenzeus to the Valen-
tinians. See lib. i. cap. i. p.9. 1.5: p. 15. 1.16:
Ρ. 16. 1. 24. lib. ii. cap. x. 130. 1.16: cap. xv. 134.
1. 28, &c.
With respect to this last opinion however; the ab-
solute length of time between the commencement of our
Lord’s ministry, and the ascension into heaven, must
have been considered by these followers of Valentinus,
an interval of two years and eight months; which
very nearly implies a ministry of three years’ dura-
tion *.
* It would equally nearly ap-
proach to the period of the three
years in question, if the state-
ment which occurs in Ambrose,
Operum ii. 951. A. B. Epistole,
xl. ὃ, 16. in his letter to the
emperor Theodosius, that the
Valentinians recognised thirty-
two Atons, might be implicitly
taken for granted: Licet gen-
tiles duodecim deos appellent,
isti triginta et duos Zonas co-
s Cf. De SS. Ecclesiasticis, xxix. Operum iv. Pars iia. 111.
rise of Montanism the year before.
I ground this assertion on the following pas-
lant, quos appellant deos. It is
true, our other authorities for
the opinions of the Valentinians,
Treneus, Tertullian, Epiphanius,
Theodorit, represent the number
of Aions, recognised by them, to
be thirty: and the editors of
Ambrose think the other two
may be accounted for by sup-
posing him to include among the
rest, the Sige and Bythus, out
of which the AZons of the Va-
Jerome dates the
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 601
sage ὃ: καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς δεκαοκτὼ Αἰῶνας φανεροῦσθαι διὰ
τοῦ μετὰ τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν δεκαοκτὼ μησὶ λέγειν δια-
τετριφέναι αὐτὸν σὺν τοῖς μαθηταῖς. Cf. p. 112. 1. 22. cap.
xxxiv. where the same statement is repeated: Reme-
moratum autem eun: post resurrectionem ΧΡ]. mensi-
bus, et sensibilitate in eum descendente didicisse quod
liquidum est: et paucos ex discipulis suis, quos sciebat
capaces tantorum mysteriorum, docuit hee, et sic re-
ceptus est in coelum, &c.
The most authentic accounts of Valentinus, the
founder of this sect, represent him as contemporary
with Hyginus, the ninth bishop of Rome; and to have
flourished in the reign of Hadrian, or early in that of
Antoninus Piust. Clemens Alexandrinus tells us that
he was said to have been an hearer of Theodadis, The-
odas, or Theudas, who had personally known St. Paul*.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the errors of doctrine into
which he fell, the circumstance of his coming so near
to the apostolical times must give weight to his opin-
ions concerning facts—which he might have learned,
by only one intermediate link, from the testimony of
St. Paul himself. And as to his errors of faith or
lentinians took their rise. The to be observed, that others of
number of the Afons, in any
case, has respect to the number
of months in the duration of the
personal ministry of the Christ,
between his baptism and his
ascension into heaven. If the
number of AZons was thirty, so
was the number of months. If
the former was thirty-two, so
was the latter. It is however
s Lib. i. v. 16. 10.
the school of Valentinus, as Pto-
lemeus and Secundus, added
to the number of his Hons; yet
according to Tertullian, De Pre-
scriptionibus Hereticorum, 49.
Operum ii. 73. not simply two
but eight more than he sup-
posed. Cf. Adversus Valentinia-
nos, 33-38: Ibid. 183-188. Also,
Ireneus, i. 5, 6. p. 49-55.
t Ireneus, iii. iv. 206. 1.18: Tertullian, ii. 35. De
Prescriptionibus Hereticorum, 30: also 147. Contra Valentinianos, 4: Euse-
bius, E. H. iv. 10, 11.22. 30: Epiphanius i. 164. A. Valentiniani 2: Theodorit,
iv. 296. Hereticarum Fabularum i. 7. Eusebius and Jerome in Chronico, ad
Antonini Pii vi. u Opera, ii. 898. 1. 12. Strom. vii. 17.
602 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
doctrine, Tertullian informs us he did not become an
heeresiarch, until he had been disappointed of a bi-
shopric.
It may be inferred, also, from the following passage,
that they thought our Lord was born at the same time
in one year, at which he was baptized and suffered in
another: Illam enim, quam circa duodecimum A®onem
dicunt accidisse passionem, conantur ostendere, quod
Salvatoris passio a duodecimo apostolorum facta sit, et
in duodecimo mense. uno enim anno volunt eum post
baptismum preedicasse *. I consider this to mean
the twelfth month of his ministry ; though Ireneus
understands it of the twelfth month in the year, and
charges the Valentinians with an absurdity accord-
ingly. There is an end of the analogy for which this sect
contended, if the ministry in question was either more or
less than a year in duration. The same thing follows,
if our Lord was supposed to have been baptized at
more or less than the age of thirty. As they supposed
him, therefore, to have been baptized at thirty com-
plete, so they supposed him to have suffered at thirty-
one complete ; and consequently to have been born at
the same time of the year, at which he was baptized
and suffered.
I cannot dismiss this subject, without taking notice
of a very extraordinary opinion of Irenzeus’ own; viz.
that though he believed our Lord to have been bap-
tized in his thirtieth year, he did not consider him to
have entered on his ministry, until he was forty or
fifty. The reasons of his opinion are thus stated’:
Triginta quidem annorum existens cum veniret ad
baptismum, deinde magistri etatem perfectam habens,
venit Hierusalem, ita ut ab omnibus juste audiretur
(leg. audiret) magister .... magister ergo existens,
x Treneus, ii. xxxvi. 156. 1. 24. y Lib. ii. xxxix. 160. 1. 30.
»
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 603
magistri quoque habebat etatem .. . illi autem, ut fig-
mentum suum, de eo quod est scriptum, vocare annum
Domini acceptum, affirment, dicunt uno anno eum
preedicasse, et duodecimo mense passum ..... quomodo
autem docebat, magistri ztatem non habens?.... et si
(ita leg.) a baptismate uno tantum anno predicavit,
complens trigesimum annum passus est, adhuc juvenis
existens, et qui necdum provectiorem haberet ztatem.
quia autem triginta annorum tas prima indolis est
juvenis, et extenditur usque ad quadragesimum an-
num, omnis quilibet confitebitur: a quadragesimo au-
tem et quinquagesimo anno declinat jam in etatem
seniorem: quam habens Dominus noster docebat, sicut
Evangelium, καὶ πάντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι μαρτυροῦσιν, οἱ
κατὰ τὴν ᾿Ασίαν ᾿Ιωάννη τῷ τοῦ ἸΚυρίου μαθητῆ συμβεβλη-
κότες. παραδεδωκέναι ταῦτα τὸν ᾿Ιωάννην. παρέμεινε γὰρ
αὐτοῖς μέχρι τών Tpatavod χρόνων. quidam autem eorum
non solum Joannem, sed et alios apostolos viderunt, et
heec eadem ab ipsis audierunt, et testantur de hujus-
modi relatione.
Notwithstanding the traditionary authority to which
he appeals in support of this opinion, it is so improba-
ble, that no one can hesitate to reject it. Nor would I
be understood to say that there was no traditionary
authority for the substance of the above statement in
general; but only, that in all probability, the testi-
mony of St. John and of the other apostles, to which
it refers, went no further than this; viz. that when
our Lord entered on his ministry, he had, what Ire-
nzeus calls, the perfecta magistri etas: which among
the Jews was thirty: he was in the full possession of
all the natural powers both of mind and of body”.
It is clear, from the reasoning of Irenzus, that he
himself understood the perfect age of a master or
z See Dissertation xi. vol. i. 374—380.
604 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
teacher to begin at forty, not at thirty ; in which re-
spect there is no doubt, that his opinion was opposed
to that of the Jews. If then his traditionary testimony
had been given simply to this effect, that when our
Saviour entered upon the work of teaching he was
of the full age for a master or teacher—though that
in reality might mean no more than that he was
of the full age of thirty—it is morally certain,that Ire-
nzeus would understand it of the age of forty. In a
word, that our Lord was of the perfect age of a master
when he entered on his ministry, might be truly said
to have been traditionally handed down from St. John,
through the elders; that he was consequently forty,
and not merely thirty, at the same time, is an infer-
ence from this fact, or a gloss upon the traditions of
Irenzus’ time, which is not to be received as sanc-
tioned by the same authority, but to be rejected as
inconsistent with it.
In support of the same opinion, he lays some stress
in the next chapter, upon the implicit testimony of
John viii. 57: πεντήκοντα ἔτη οὔπω ἔχεις" καὶ ᾿Αβραὰμ
ἑώρακας ; Which he thinks would not have been said to
Jesus, if he had not been more than forty, and known
to be so by the speakers. But Irenzeus mistook the
meaning of this text: which has nothing to do with
the absolute age of our Lord at the time; with his
personal appearance, as looking older than he really
might be, or the like: but was, as I should understand
it, simply intended to remind him he was still a young
man; he was not yet of an age even to be called old
—how then could he have seen Abraham? The age of
fifty is mentioned, because that was the first age at
which men began properly to be considered old. Ire-
neus himself proves this*: Quinque etates transit
a Lib. ii. xlii, 166. 22.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 605
humanum genus: primum infans, deinde puer, deinde
parvulus, (μειράκιον,) et posthec juvenis, sic deinde
senior: and the age of juvenis he fixes above to begin
at thirty, and to end at forty. The Persians placed
the beginning of old age at fifty-two: the Roman law at
fifty>. Jerome, in Is. iii. observes: Tuli senem et quin-
quagenarium, et admirabilem consiliarium, et sapientem
architectum, et prudentem conditorem, etc., from which
it appears that senea and quinquagenarius were con-
vertible terms®. Cf. on this subject, the passages col-
lected, Dissertation xi. vol. i. 377-379 *.
Lastly, we may observe, that after the commence-
ment of our Lord’s ministry, whether at thirty or forty
years of age, Irenaeus reckons three passovers4; the
first, John ii. 13: the second, the controverted one of
John v. 1: Quando paralyticum qui juxta natatoriam
jacebat xxxviii annos, curavit: of which, however, he
speaks without any hesitation, as of a Passover. The
third Passover, is the last; when Jesus came to Beth-
any, six days before it, and is represented in the Gos-
pels as, Manducans Pascha, et sequenti die passus.
With respect to any other Passover, though he men-
* In some ancient references
to it, the above text is quoted
with the reading of τεσσαράκοντα,
instead of πεντήκοντα: for in-
stance, Chrysostom, Operum i.
505. A. Homilia vii. 3: and viii.
324. A. in Joannem Homilia lv.
2. The latter is no doubt the true
reading—but the former might
easily get substituted for it—
with a view perhaps to bring
the statement within the bounds
of probability, supposing our
Lord’s true age at the time to
have been thirty and upwards.
‘Thou art not yet forty,” re-
ferred to the true state of the
case, would be an observation,
on the principle of a general, in-
definite and conjectural mode of
speaking, much more tolerable
than, ‘“‘ Thou art not yet fifty.”
b Xenophon, Cyropedia, i. ii. §. 12,13. Cf. Zonaras, iii. xv. 147. D. Pliny, Epp.
iv. 23. Seneca, de Brevitate Vite, xx. 3. Seneca Pater, Controversie, i. Vili.
138. Aulus Gellius, x. 28. Suidas, voce Διαιτήτας, and ᾿Εφέται, will shew that
the same thing held good at Athens.
¢ Hieronymus, iii. 36. ad principium. Cf.
Josephus, Ant. Jud. iii. viii. 2. xii. 4. Numbers iv. 3, &c.
d Lib. ii. xxxix. 160.
606 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
tions our Lord’s departure over the sea of Galilee, and
his feeding the five thousand, he says nothing of the
Passover’s being near at hand: whether because he
did not read this circumstance in his copy of St. John’s
Gospel, or because he overlooked it, I do not undertake
to say. |
That others besides I[renzeus, entertained the same
opinions respecting the age of our Lord, appears from
a passage of Augustin’, which I have produced else-
where. It appears also from the ἀντικείμενα of Stephen
Gobarus, of which Photius has given us an abstract ©;
ὅτι ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς λ΄, ἐνιαυτῶν ὑπάρχων
ἐσταυρώθη" καὶ ὅτι οὐ λ΄. ἀλλὰ γ΄. καὶ λ΄" καὶ ὅτι οὐ γ΄. καὶ
λ΄. ἀλλὰ μ᾽" καὶ ὅτι οὔτε λ΄. ἐτῶν οὔτε μ΄. μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ
πλέον, οὐ πολὺ τῶν ν΄. ἀφεστηκώς.
It is observable that this writer, whose work con-
sisted of a collection of contrary opinions upon ques-
tions of fact or of doctrine—knew of no opinion, ex-
cept the last two, which did not suppose our Saviour
to be either thirty, or thirty-three, years old at his
death; and therefore his ministry, between his bap-
tism and his death, to have been of one year’s, or of
three years’, duration.
The same writer, loc. cit. 1. 42, mentions an opinion
that Christ ascended into heaven on the day after his
resurrection from the dead, upon the seateenth day of
the month: which may render it less extraordinary
that others on the contrary, like the Valentinians,
should have thought there was even more than a forty
days’ interval between those two events.
- Epiphanius, quoting from one of these Valentinian
authors, (though the passage in the original is exceed-
d Opera, iii. 36. De Doctrina Christiana, lib. ii. 42. Vide Dissertation iv. vol. i.
245. e Photius, Codex, 232. page 290. 1. 14.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 607
ingly corrupt,) writes thus‘: The everlasting Word of
God was born about the fortieth of Augustus. The
same author added, he says, On the x11 of the Kalends
of July or June, I cannot tell which, in the consulship
of Sulpicius Camerinus, and Buteo Pompeianus.
The fortieth of Augustus bears date from U.C.711:
and the birth of Christ would thus be placed May 21.
or June 20. U.C. 750 or U.C. 751. The important
circumstance in this tradition is that the nativity is
supposed to have taken place in the spring quarter of
the year: an opinion which Epiphanius does not at-
tempt to controvert, except by considering it possible
that it might have confounded the nativity with the
annunciation; and if, as some persons had thought,
Christ was born at the end of seven months, instead of
nine, the nativity might yet take place on the 6th of
January; which is his own date for it.
As to the two consuls, in whose year the nativity is
said to have happened, it is in vain to search for them
in the Fasti, U.C. 750 or U.C. 751. Yet that Epipha-
nius had some real foundation for the statement which
he has made, is proved by the following references.
Syncellus ® tells us that our Lord was born on the
twenty-fifth of Chasleu or December, in the forty-
third (/eg. 42.) of Augustus, ἐν ὑπατείᾳ Σουλπικίου Kape-
pivov, καὶ Latov Llomzaiov, ὡς ἐν ἀκριβέσι καὶ παλαιοῖς av-
τυγράφοις φέρεται. The forty-second of Augustus, it
is true, would be U.C. 752: and these two were con-
suls U.C. 762. On the same authority Syncellus as-
serts that our Saviour suffered, coss. Nerone iii. et Va-
lerio Messala », U.C. 811.
Perhaps the source of these traditions is indicated
in the fragment published by Muratori, and ascribed to
Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem about the end of the
f Opera, i. 450. D. Alogi, xxviii. xxix. δ 1. 507. 5. h i. 607. 9.
608 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
third century‘: in which the nativity is placed viii. Kal.
Jan. Sulpitio et Camerino (corrige Camerino et Sa-
bino) coss. (U. C. 762:) the baptism viii. Idus Jan.
Valeriano et Asiatico (Asiatico et Silano, U. C. 799.)
and the passion x. Kal. April. Nerone iii. et Messala
coss. U.C. 811. To explain these dates, or to pre-
tend to account for their origin, would be an hopeless
undertaking: yet the last of them is consistent with
the opinion that our Lord suffered at forty-nine or
fifty. And the first of them might be produced by
confounding two things together; viz. the birth of
Christ 22 the forty-second of Augustus, and yet iz the
consulship of Sulpicius Camerinus and Poppzus Sabi-
nus. The former of these answered to U. C. 752, the
latter to U. C. 762, between which the difference is ten
years.
A ten years’ difference in the era of the first consu-
late, or the accidental omission of fen successive names
in some copies of the Fasti, before U. C. 752; might
make a particular consulate, according to one mode of
computation, belong to U.C.'752, which according to
the truth would belong to U.C. 762. The old Valen-
tinian author, however, quoted by Epiphanius, joins
the consulate in question with the fortieth of Augus-
tus. The consuls, U. C. 750, which would answer to
that year, were C. Calvisius Sabinus, and L. Patienus
Rufus: and considering the many corruptions of the
readings both of names and numbers, in the extant works
of Epiphanius, it is just possible that, instead of Sulpi-
cius Camerinus and Buteo Pompeianus, (the last of
which names appears nowhere,) he might actually
have written Calvisius Sabinus and Patienus Rufus.
CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS—Opera, i. 407. 18.
i Reliquize Sacre, ii. 49. ad calcem.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 609
Stromatum i. 21. 1.18: εἰσὶ δὲ of περιεργότερον TH “γενέσει
aA wn e A 9 , a: ° \ 4 A e ,
τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν οὐ μόνον τὸ ἔτος, ἀλλὰ καὶ THY ἡμέραν
, e a ’ ? , 93 ’ ,
προστιθέντες" ἥν φασιν ἔτους κη΄. Αὐγούστου ἐν πέμπτῃ [1ἀ-
χων καὶ εἰκάδι. οἱ δὲ ἀπὸ Βασιλείδου καὶ τοῦ βαπτίσματος
αὐτοῦ τὴν ἡμέραν ἑορτάζουσι, προδιανυκτερεύοντες ἀναγνώσε-
σι. φασὶ δὲ εἶναι τὸ πεντεκαιδέκατον ἔτος Γιβερίου Καίσαρος,
ἢ , ps 4 “1 \ ee kee ἢ
τὴν πεντεκαιδεκάτην τοῦ TuBi μηνός" τινὲς δὲ αὐτὴν ἑνδεκα-
τὴν τοῦ αὐτοῦ μηνός. τό τε πάθος αὐτοῦ ἀκριβολογούμενοι
, e ’ Att , a Ul /
φέρουσιν οἱ μέν τινες τῷ ἑκκαιδεκάτῳ ἔτει TiBepiov Kaica-
pos, Φαμενὼθ κε΄" οἱ δὲ Φαρμουθὲ κε΄" ἄλλοι δὲ Dapuovdi ιθ',
, A “~ , A , 7 A
πεπονθέναι τὸν Σωτῆρα λέγουσιν. καὶ μήν τινες αὐτῶν φασι
Φαρμουθὶ γεγεννῆσθαι «0 ἢ Ke.
With regard to these dates, if the first of Thoth in
the Egyptian year be supposed to correspond to the
29th of August, the 11th of Tybi answers to Ja-
nuary 6, and the 15th to January 10: the 25th of
Phamenoth to March 21: the 19th of Pharmuthi to
April 14: the 24th of Pharmuthi to April 19: the
25th to April 20: and the 25th of Pachon to May 20.
I think it is evident from the perusal of this pas-
sage, that as to the quarter of the year to which the
Baptism, the Birth, and the Passion of Christ, were re-
spectively referred by these opinions, Clement did not
disagree with them. If he speaks of the curiosity of
their authors in terms approaching to censure; it is
only because they had attempted to go further, and to
ascertain not merely the time of the year, but the very
day of the events in question in each instance.
Under these circumstances, it is scarcely to be sup-
posed that Clement himself would think of fixing the
day of the Nativity; and much less of assigning it to a
quarter of the year the very reverse of that which is
specified above. Yet this must be the case, if, as he
proceeds, Joc. cit. to say, from the birth of Christ to
VOL. III. Rr
610 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
the death of Commodus, there was 194 years’, one
month’s, and thirteen days’ interval.
The death of Commodus happened on December 31,
U.C. 945*: and consequently the birth of our Lord,
on this principle, would bear date November 18 or 19,
U.C. 751. But Clement himself places the Nativity
in the twenty-erghth of Augustus, which he dates from
the reduction of Egypt, August, U. C. 724: and con-
sequently he places it either U.C. 781, or U.C. 752.
It could not be in U.C. 751; for he supposes the Pas-
sion itself to take place in the fifteenth of Tiberius,
U. C. 782, when our Lord was thirty years of age.
Hence, at whatever time he supposed him to be thirty,
U.C. 782, at the same time he must have supposed him
to be born, U. C.'752. Reckoning, as he does, the reign
of Augustus at 43 years, and placing the Nativity in his
28th, and the Passion in the fifteenth of Tiberius—
thirty years after the birth of Christ; he must have
supposed our Lord to have lived fifteen years and six
months under Augustus, and fourteen years and six
months under Tiberius: and consequently to have
been born in the spring of U.C.'752, as he suffered in
the spring of U. C. 782.
The truth is, that nothing is more corrupt than the
numeral readings which occur in the text of Clement.
It would be an endless task to specify all the instances
of this corruption, which might be produced. The
subject under discussion supplies one: for whereas the
sum total of the interval between the birth of Christ
and the death of Commodus, is stated at 194 years,
and upwards; the particular details amount to 200
years, and upwards, involving an error of excess of at
least six years. In another passage—where the reigns
k Dio, Ixxii. 22. Capitolinus, Pertinax, 4. Herodian, i. 49—55. ii. 5.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 611
of the Roman emperors from Augustus to Commodus
are given in detail, while the whole is put at 222
years! *, the details amount only to 220.
In another instance, from Romulus, or the founda-
tion of Rome, to the death of Commodus, it is reck-
oned 953 years, six months™; a statement which can-
not be true in any sense, unless we suppose Clement
to have written originally 943 years, six months. For
his date of the foundation of Rome is the Catonian,
B. C. 752, not the Varronian, B.C. 754: as appears
from his reckoning 24 years between the first Olym-
piad ; (for which he follows the received date, B. C.
776";) and the era of that foundation. U.C. 943, as
referred to B.C. 752, answers to U.C. 945, referred
to B.C. 754. But even in this case the death of Com-
modus is placed six months or more too late. For he
died on the last day of U.C. 943, according to Cato,
and of U.C. 945, according to Varro; not U.C. 944,
in the one case, or U.C. 946, in the other: as Cle-
ment, however, seems uniformly to reckon.
The fractions of years, in particular, which enter
into some of his dates, are to be received with dis-
trust: as in almost every instance they manifestly la-
bour under some corruption or other. For example,
from Adam to Commodus, it is reckoned 5784 years,
two months, twelve days®. If so, the creation of the
world is placed October 19. A.M. 1. But that Cle-
ment would undertake to define the day of its creation
is very improbable: and if he did, why he should fix
on this day in particular, or any thereabouts, would be
just as inexplicable. Later Egyptian chronologists
* So also from the death of dus, it is reckoned 222 years,
Antony to the death of Commo- _p. 403. 1. 29.
1 Operum i. 405. 27—406. 8. mj, 406. 1. 29. Ni, 401. 32—402. 19.
Stromatum i. 21. 0 i, 406. 1. 7.
Rr@
612 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
might have done so; as their opinions inclined them
to fix the era of creation synchronously with the |
Thoth of the Egyptian year—about August 29.
With regard to the fraction of time in the present
instance—from the date of the Passion to the death of
Commodus—it is made up of the composition of two
numbers, both of them corrupt: one, that of 42 years,
three months, between the Passion in the fifteenth of
Tiberius, U. C. 782, and the destruction of Jerusalem,
U.C. 823; the other, 128 years, ten months, and three
days, between the destruction of Jerusalem, U.C. 823,
and the death of Commodus, Dec. 31. U. C. 945.
There is an error of one year at least in the former
date, and of six years at least in the latter. That Cle-
ment knew U.C. 823 to be the date of the destruction
of Jerusalem, appears from his reckoning it 77 years,
between the second of Vespasian, when it was de-
stroyed, and the tenth of Antoninus Pius?. From
U.C. 823, 77 years bring us to U.C. 900, the tenth
of Pius. On this principle, deducting the seven years
of excess in question, Clement must have reckoned it
163 years from U.C. 782 to U.C. 945; and if he
placed the Nativity in the spring, U. C. 752, he might
reckon it from thence, to the death of Commodus, 193
years, ten months, and a certain number of days, or
194 current years: or he might reckon it 194 years,
within one month, and thirteen days; which, if he
supposed our Saviour to have been born about the
same time of the year when he was baptized, would
probably be near the truth.
It is surprising that this father should so plainly
place the Passion of Christ in the fifteenth year of Ti-
berius, and yet suppose forty-two years, from that
time to the destruction of Jerusalem, U.C. 823. In
P Operum i. 409. 1. 14. Stromatum i. 21.
Opinions of the must ancient Christians. 613
this statement, however, he is followed by Origen, and
by Jerome: εἰ δὲ θέλεις, akove’ ἀπὸ πέντε καὶ δεκάτου
ἔτους Τιβερίου Καίσαρος ἐπὶ τὴν κατασκαφὴν τοῦ ναοῦ
τεσσαράκοντα καὶ δύο πεπλήρωται ἔτη. Prius enim
Evangelium Salvatoris in toto orbe przedicatum est: et
post quadraginta duos annos Dominice passionis capta
Jerusalem, templumque succensum est '—Nec grande
fuit tempus in medio. nam post quadraginta et duos
annos Dominic crucis circumdata est ab exercitu Je-
rusalem ‘—Itaque impetravit, quod petierat: multaque
statim de Judzis millia crediderunt, et usque ad qua-
dragesimuim secundum annum datum est tempus peeni-
tentiz'. This mistake is so much the more inexcus-
able in Jerome, because his date for the Passion is two
years later, the seventeenth of Tiberius, U.C. 784:
and Origen, in another instance, quoting the Chronica
of Phlegon, computes the interval more correctly, Circa
quadragesimum annum a quinto decimo anno Tiberii
Ceesaris". Chrysostom also reckons the interval at
forty years and upwards: though his date for the
Passion is one year later than Jerome’s*. So little so-
licitous do these writers seem to have been, about veri-
fying their dates, before they allowed them to remain
on record.
Clement’s opinion of the length of our Saviour’s
ᾳ Origen, Operum iii. 217. A. in Jerem. Homilia xiv. 13. Also Contra Celsum,
iv. 22. Operum i. 515. E. τ Hieronymus, Operum iii. 61. ad medium, in Isaiz vi.
8 Ib. iii. 1656. ad calcem, In Sophon. 1. t Ib. iv. pars i. 177. ad medium, Hedibie.
Ὁ Operum iii. 859. C. Comm. in Matt. Series secundum Veterem Interpreta-
tionem, 40. x Operum vii. 680. B. in Mattheum Homilia Ixix. 1. and iii.
95. Ὁ. Cur in Pentecoste Acta App. legantur, 9. The Hypomnesticon of Jo-
seph, v. cxxiii. 255. places the destruction of the temple by Vespasian and Titus,
thirty-eight years after the Ascension : which, if the Ascension were dated in the
eighteenth of Tiberius, U.C. 785, would be correct. The Chronicon of Julius
Pollux, like Chrysostom, makes the interval in question forty years (see page 200.)
though this too, like Chrysostom, places the Passion in the eighteenth of Tiberius,
p- 172. 180. These statements were probably taken from Eusebius, who likewise
supposes forty years complete between the Passion and the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, E.H. iii. 7. 82. A: though he too dates the Passion in the eighteenth of
Tiberius : see i. 9, 10.13. The interval of forty years between the Passion and
the destruction of Jerusalem is true of no date of the Passion, but the sixteenth
of Tiberius, U. C. 783.
Rrd
614 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
᾿ ministry, as not exceeding one year, appears sufficiently
from the extracts given, Dissertation xiii. vol. i. 439.
455. It seems, likewise, from the fragment e Libro
de Paschate, Operum ii. 1017. 1.15. that he considered
the Passover at which our Saviour suffered, to be the
first which he celebrated after the commencement of
his ministry; and this also implies a ministry previ-
ously, of not more than one year in duration.
TERTULLIAN—I am not aware of any passages in
the works of Tertullian, from which it might be col-
lected at what time of the year he thought our Saviour
was born; except this one, which may be produced
from the Liber adversus Jude@os, caput 8; and from
this too it is to be inferred only by implication.
He supposes Augustus (p. 297.) to have survived
the Nativity fifteen years; and he places the Passion
(p. 299.) in the fifteenth of Tiberius, when Christ was
quasi triginta annorum. As he says nothing of frac-
tions of years, either he speaks very inaccurately, or
he must date the reign of Augustus from U.C. 711.
zeneunte, and that of Tiberius from U.C. 767. ineunte :
in which case the Nativity might be placed in the
forty-first of the former exeunte, spring, U. C. 752,
and the Passion, in the fifteenth of the latter exeunte,
U.C. 782, when our Lord might be supposed to be
just thirty complete.
He reckons further 7 diem Nativitatis Christi
(p. 297.), from the first of Darius (p. 295.), sixty-two
prophetical weeks and an half, or four hundred and
thirty-seven years and six months; as, again, in an-
other instance (p. 298, 299.), from the Passion in. the
fifteenth of Tiberius, to the end of the reign of Ve-
spasian, he reckons seven weeks and an half—or fifty-
two years and six months. These calculations may
eee
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 615
not be exact; but I think we may infer from them
that he placed the Nativity in the spring; as well
as the Passion. ‘These two periods of sixty-two weeks
and an half, and of seven weeks and an half, are in-
tended to make up seventy weeks in all; or four hun-
dred and ninety years: and the first of them ending
with the Nativity, and the second beginning with
the Passion, it is reasonable to suppose they were
intended to be as continuous as the nature of the
case would permit; and (with the exception of the
thirty years from the Nativity to the Passion inter-
posed) to end and to proceed alike. The interposition
of these thirty years is no objection ; for Tertullian’s
idea of the prophecy is that the sixty-two weeks were
purposely detached from the seven (p. 295. 297, 298.);
in order that the birth, and life, and Passion of Christ
might come between them. In other respects, he must
have considered its two periods continuous; and there-
fore, as they are supposed to end in the autumn of one
year, they must be supposed to have begun with the
autumn of another: from which time, 437 years, six
months, the first of the periods, 22 diem Nativitatis
Christi, must necessarily terminate in the spring.
ORIGEN—With respect to Origen; the testimony
of Pamphilus, and the evidence of many passages in
his own works imply, as we observed on the former
occasion, that he once believed the length of our Sa-
viour’s ministry not to have exceeded one year and a
few months. Other passages, however, will shew that
he changed this opinion subsequently ; and as it cannot
be uninteresting to the reader to observe the gradual
alteration in the sentiments of such a mind as Origen’s,
produced by further inquiry and meditation, I shall
exhibit the passages of both kinds in their order.
Rr 4
616 Appendia. Dissertation Thirteenth.
Τεκμήριον yap τῆς ἐκχυθείσης χάριτος ἐν χείλεσιν αὐτοῦ
τὸ ὀλίγου διαγεγενημένου τοῦ χρόνου τῆς διδασκαλίας αὐτοῦ,
ἐνιαυτὸν γάρ που καὶ μῆνας ὀλίγους ἐδίδαξεν, κ, το λ Υ.
Si ergo considerem verum pontificem meum, Domi-
num Jesum Christum, quomodo in carne quidem posi-
tus, per totum annum erat cum populo, annum illum
de quo ipse dicit: Evangelizare pauperibus misit me,
et vocare annum Domini acceptum, et diem remissio-
nis: adverte quomodo semel in anne isto, in die repro-
pitiationis intrat in sancta sanctorum, hoc est, cum im-
pleta dispensatione penetrat ccelos, et intrat ad pa-
trem ὅ.
Preedicare annum Domini. acceptum—juxta simpli-
cem intelligentiam aiunt uno anno Salvatorem in Judea
evangelium predicasse, et hoc esse quod dicitur, Prze-
dicare ὃ, etc.
"Eay δὲ αὐτὴ ἡ ἑορτὴ τοῦ Ilacya ἣν (John v. 1.) οὐ
προσκεῖται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς" στενοχωρεῖ δὲ TO ἀκόλουθον
τῆς ἱστορίας, καὶ μάλιστα ἐπεὶ μετ᾽ ὀλίγα ἐπιφέρεται ὅτι
ἣν ἐγγὺς ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ιουδαίων ἡ σκηνοπηγίαδ.
Καίτοιγε ᾿Αριστοτέλης μὲν εἴκοσιν ἔτεσι λέγεται πεφοι-
τηκέναι [Πλάτωνι οὐκ ὀλίγον δὲ χρόνον καὶ ὁ Χρύσιππος
παρὰ τῷ Καλεάνθει πεποιῆσθαι τὰς διατριβάς. ὁ δὲ *Lovdas
παρὰ τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ οὐδὲ τρία διέτριψεν ἔτη“.
Si autem oportet et de temporibus aliquid dicere ;
dicimus quoniam in Chronicis Phlegontis cujusdam di-
citur, (si tamen debemus et hunc quasi vera dicentem
de templo suscipere,) quoniam circa quadragesimum
annum a quinto decimo anno Tiberii Czesaris facta
est destructio Jerusalem, et templi quod fuit in ea.
deduce ergo preedicationis Domini fere annos tres, et
tempus resurrectionis ipsius, quando per dies quadra-
y Operum i. 160. De Principiis, iv. 5. z Operum ii. 239. C. In Leviticum
Homilia ix. 5. ἃ Operum iil. 970. C. in Lucam Homilia xxxii. b Operum
iv. 250. A. B. in Joh. Comm. tom. xiii. 39. ¢ Operum i. 397. E. Contra
Celsum, ii. 12.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 617
ginta apparens illis docebat eos de regno Dei, et inve-
nies forsitan plus minus: quoniam circa dimidium se-
ptimanz, computans per decadas annorum, est comple-
tum quod dictum est, ὅσο. ὦ
To understand this passage, we must compare it
with the following just before, and with Jerome’s com-
mentary on Dan. ix.
Hzc enim septimana, que propter septem decadas
annorum dicitur septimana, confirmat testamentum
multis, quando et Apostoli Christi post ascensionem
ipsius, orationi et verbo instantes, a Deo illuminaban-
tur in omnem scientiam voluntatis divinarum scriptu-
rarum, et aSpiritu Sancto. in dimidio autem septimane,
id est, in tribus et semis decadis annorum, sublatum
est sacrificium altaris: id est in triginta quinque annis
impletum est quod fuerat scriptum, &c. °
Dicit idem Eusebius et aliam opinionem, quam ex
parte non reprobo: quod plerique unam hebdomadem
annorum in septuaginta annos extendant: per singu-
los hebdomadis annos decennio supputato. et volunt
a passione Domini, usque ad Neronis imperium, annos
esse triginta quinque, quando contra Judzos Romana
primum arma commota sunt; et hanc esse dimidiam
hebdomadam annorum septuaginta. postea vero a Ve-
spasiano et Tito, et deinceps quando Jerosolyma tem-
plumque succensum est, usque ad Trajanum, alios esse
annos triginta quinque: et hance esse hebdomadem de
qua Angelus loquitur Danieli: Confirmabit autem.
pactum multis hebdomada una. in totum enim orbem
per apostolos Evangelium preedicatum est: qui usque
ad illud tempus perseveraverunt, tradentibus Ecclesi-
asticis historiis Johannem Evangelistam usque ad tem-
pora vixisse Trajani ἴ.
With regard to the dates and order of eo several
ἃ Operum iii. 859. C. Comm. in Matt. Series secundum Veterem Interpreta-
tionem, 40. © Ibid. 858. F. Ἢ Hieronymus, Operum iii. 1114. ad principium.
618 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
passages, they may be determined in a great measure
from the internal evidence of the works themselves ;
so far at least as to demonstrate that the first four are
prior in point of time to the two last. The Homilies
on St. Luke are quoted in the Commentaries on St.
John 8: and the Commentaries upon St. John in those
on St. Matthew*. The Commentaries on the books of
the Old Testament are frequently mentioned in the
work against Celsus +.
Eusebius informs us that Origen was seventeen
when his father suffered martyrdom under Severus, in
the tenth year of his reign, A. D. 202*: and was
eighteen when he was appointed to the head of the
catechetical school at Alexandria*: that he emigrated
from Alexandria to Czesarea, about. the tenth of Ale-
xander Severus, A. D. 231: that five books of his Com-
mentaries on St. John had been written before that
time; and that the remainder, seventeen in number,
were written after it; the last, about the time of Maxi-
min’s persecution, A. Ὁ. 235—238!; that he was up-
wards of sixty in the third of Philip, when he com-
posed his work against Celsus, and his Commentary
upon St. Matthew; and that he died at sixty-nine or
seventy, sometime in the persecution under Gallus,
A. D. 252—254™.
* Severus’ persecution of
Christianity seems to be fixed
to this year by the testimony of
Spartian also; Vita, 17. com-
pared with 16; U.C. 955. A. D.
202: though in the life of An-
toninus Caracallus, 1. he speaks
& xxxii. 2. Operum i iv. 404. D.
of some persecution, when Anto-
ninus was seven years old: which
would be A. D. 194 or 195. See
Dio, lxxviii. 5, 6. 14: Herodian,
iv. 26. Spartian, Antoninus, 6.
A. D. 194 or 195. would be
the first or second of Severus.
h Operum iii. 748. C. D. tom. xvi. 19, 20.
Cf. 893. B. Comm. in Matt. Series, 77. and Operum iv. 192. A. in Joh. tom. x.
18. i Operumi. 530. Ὁ. ᾿ν ἦν. 37: 670. E. vi. 49: 672: C. vi.51: 678. F. vi.
60: 7or. E.F. vii. 11.&ce. * E. H. vi. 2.3. 201. C. 203. B—204. B. 1E.H.
vi. 21.24.26. 28. τῷ Ibid. vi. 35, 36. and vii. 1. Cf. Hieronymus, De Viris Ec-
clesiasticis, liv. Operum i iv. pars 2%. 115. Syncellus, 682.8. 707. 10 Photius, Codex
118. page 92. Suidas, ᾿ΩριγένηΞ. The year of his death must have been A.D.
254, if he was sixty-nine complete at his death, and seventeen A. D. 202.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 619
The precise time of the work against Celsus may
very probably be collected from certain passages there-
in: first, where the author is speaking of the paucity
of martyrs—though only in comparison of the much
greater numbers who always survived these attacks on
the church "—and from what he says of the continued
increase of Christianity, without hindrance or moles-
tation, at the time when he was writing®, it seems a
necessary inference that no such thing as the persecu-
tion under Decius, or under Gallus and Volusianus, had
as yet taken place, and therefore that he was not writing
later than A. D. 249. Secondly, from what he says of
the existence of political commotions and troubles, at
the time when he was writing ?, it is equally necessary
to infer that he was writing at the close of the reign of
the two Philippi, which is known to have been distin-
guished by such disturbances‘; and therefore not later
than A. D. 248, or A. D. 249.
This is sufficient to prove that the work against Cel-
sus, and consequently the Commentaries on St. Mat-
thew, which furnish the evidence of the change in Ori-
gen’s opinion of the duration of our Saviour’s ministry,
are the latest of his productions which have come down
to us; and were written in the maturity of his judg-
ment, and not many years before his death. The
former, besides being a perfect work, which has been
transmitted to us in its original state, is deservedly to
be considered the most masterly of his numerous com-
positions; and as the index of his deliberate senti-
ments, ought on every account to be preferred to the
rest.
When, therefore, he observes in it, ὁ δὲ ᾿Ιούδας παρὰ
τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ οὐδὲ τρία διέτριψεν ἔτη, he cannot affirm less
n Lib. iii. 8. Operum i. 452. D. ο Lib. vii. 26. 712. F. P Lib. iii, 15.
"456. C. ᾳ Zosimus, Historie, i.
620 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
᾿ς than that Judas was with Jesus more than two, though
perhaps not quite three years: and this may mean,
not that the ministry of our Lord did not last three
years, but that Judas, like the rest of the apostles, was
not called to be a disciple and to company with Jesus,
until part of its first year was over. From the other
passage, however, Deduc ergo predicationis Domini
fere annos tres, I should conclude he thought its dura-
tion was not quite three years; though not much less
than that.
HippoLytTus—On the authority of the Chronicon,
ascribed to Hippolytus Portuensis, in the passage cited
from it, as Alexander died ΟἹ. 114.1. B.C. 324, the
Nativity is placed apparently B.C. 4. U.C.750. But
the author of the Chronicon speaks inaccurately; and
the true date of the Nativity, as adopted by him, was
U..C. 752. BC. 2,
For he twice reckons it 206 years from the Passion
to the thirteenth of Alexander Severus; which thir-
teenth expired March 11, U.C. 988. Two hundred
and six years before that go back to U.C.'782. And
he twice reckons it thirty years from the Nativity to
the Passion; which last being dated U.C. 782, the
Nativity is dated U. C. 752. He reckons fifty-nine
Olympiads, or 236 years, a Christo usque annum xiii
Imperii Alexandri; and from B.C. 2, or U. C. 752,
236 years bring us to A. D. 235, U.C.988. But it is
unnecessary to multiply the proofs of this position. It
is more important to observe that the author of the
Chronicle places the Nativity at the time of the Jewish
Passover; that is, in the spring: a conclusion obvi-
ously to be collected from such passages as these: Post
Hezram, servatoris usque generationes Christi. . .
Pascha fit—A generatione autem Christi, post triginta
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 621
annos, cum passus est Dominus, Pascha celebratur:
ipse enim erat justum Pascha.
The Chronicon in question is, as I think, with rea-
son supposed to be a Latin version, or abstract of the
Chronicon of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus Romanus*,
and martyr, who was a contemporary of Alexander
Severus; and the author of a chronological work which
ended at the beginning of his reign".
If there were any doubt upon this point, it would
contribute greatly to remove it, that the testimony of
a genuine document, which is commonly ascribed to
Hippolytus, may be shewn to agree with the Chronicle
in both these respects; both that of placing the birth of
Christ in the spring, U. C. 752, and that of dating the
Passion in the spring, U.C. 782, just thirty years
afterwards. ‘The document in question is the Pascha-
lium, or Paschal Calendar, which was found inscribed
upon a marble, discovered A. D. 1551: the nature of
which, after all that has been written about it, is pro-
* Portus (Romanus) is de-
scribed by Procopius, De Bello
Gotthico, i. 26. about A. D. 537,
as a city formerly of consider-
able consequence, and still of
importance, situated over against
Ostia, on the right bank of the
Tyber, as Ostia was on the left ;
each at the mouth of the river,
and each 126 stades from Rome.
Cf. also cap. 27. Hippolytus
was most probably bishop of
this place. At an earlier period,
speaking of the siege of Rome
by Alaric, A. D. 408-410. Sozo-
men (ix. 6. 807. D.) represents
the Portus, as the ἐπίνειον of the
Romans, where the necessaries
(ἐπιτήδεια) imported for the use
of the city were first received and
stored. Cf. cap. 8. 809. C. Philo-
storgius, in reference to the same
occasion, Xil. 3. 533. B. says of
Alaric, 6 δὲ θᾶττον καταλαμβάνει
τὸν Πόρτον᾽" μέγιστον δὲ οὗτος νεώ--
ριον Ῥώμης, λιμέσι τρισὶ περιγρα--
φόμενος, καὶ εἰς πόλεως μικρᾶς παρα-
τεινόμενος μέγεθος. ἐν τούτῳ δὲ ὁ
δημόσιος ἅπας σῖτος κατὰ παλαιὸν
ἔθος ἐταμιεύετο. Such ἃ place
would probably have ἃ bishop.
Apolinarius, apud Scriptorum
Deperditorum Vaticanam Col-
lectionem, i. Comm. Varr. in Da-
nielem, 173. F. calls Hippoly-
tus, bishop of Rome.
r Eusebius, E. H. vi. 22. Hieronymus, De SS. Ecclesiasticis, 61. Operum iv.
pars 118, 117.
622 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
. bably too well known to the learned world to require
any further description ὃ.
It is sufficient to observe that this calendar consists
of a double octaéteric cycle; and is so constructed as to
shew the days of the month, and the days of the week,
on which the paschal full moons would fall for a period
of 16 x7 or 112 years, either backwards or forwards,
as dated from their proper ἀρχὴ, which is laid in the
first year of Alexander Severus, A. D. 222—when the
paschal full moon is said to have fallen upon the Ides
of April, April 13, and April 13 on the seventh day of
the week. The reason of this is, that in a cycle of
sixteen years, though the full: moons may be supposed,
at the end of it, to recur on the same days of the month
as before, they do not return to the same day of the
week; but in each instance they fall out one day ear-
lier than they did sixteen years before. In seven
cycles, then, of sixteen years, that is in 112 years in
all, they will come back to the same days of the week
as at first ; but not sooner.
On this principle, and so far as the accuracy of such
a calendar can be depended upon—if we have ascer-
tained the dates of sixteen paschal full moons in order,
from any given year, any one of those dates may be
supposed to hold good again at the distance of 112 years,
or of any number of years which is an exact multiple
of 112—either backwards or forwards. And such
being the nature of the application of the cycle, we are
furnished by it with a clue to the meaning of certain
marginal references, which are found to be annexed to
some of the full moons in the several columns of the
cycle, but not to all.
It was the opinion of Scaliger that these were in-
5 Vide Hippolyti Opera, i. 38. et seqq.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 623
tended to point out the lessons, from the Old or the
New Testament, which in the time of Hippolytus were
ordered to be read at the periods in question: for the
refutation of which opinion it is abundantly sufficient
to refer to Blanchini’s elaborate dissertation on the
cycle, as it is inserted in Fabricius’ edition of the
works of Hippolytus, doc. cit. The truth is, the re-
ferences in question were designed to indicate the dates
of certain former passovers, which had occurred 224
years, or any number of years, an exact multiple of
112, before that date in the cycle to which these re-
ferences are found annexed.
One of these references stands annexed to the date
of the paschal full moon, Wednesday, April 2, in the
second year of the first sedecennity, or column of six-
teen years, in the words Téveors Xpicrov: and another
stands parallel with the date of the paschal full moon,
Friday, March 25, in the last year of the second sede-
cennity or column, in the words [[άθος Xpicrov. Be-
tween these dates the interval froin passover to pass-
over is thirty years exactly ; which is also the interval
supposed by the author of the Latin Chronicon before
described, between the Nativity, in the spring, U.C.
752, and the Passion, in the spring, U.C. 782.
I understand the second of these indications to mean
that the [laos Xpicrov, or Passion of Christ, happened
on Friday, March 25, 224 years exactly before the
same day of the month and the week, in the thirty-
second year of the cycle; which cycle bearing date
from Saturday the 13th of April, A. D. 222, U. C. 975,
this day, in its thirty-second year, answers to Friday,
March 25, U.C. 1006. From this time, U.C. 1006,
224 years backwards bring us to the same time, U. C.
782, as the year of the Passion of Christ.
In like manner, the former indication, T'éveais Χρίστου,
6094 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
. annexed to the paschal full moon, Wednesday, April 2,
in the second year of the cycle, A. D. 223, or U. C. 976,
is intended to shew that the same paschal moon hap-
pened 224 years before, at the nativity of Christ. The
Nativity is thus placed, U. C.'752, B.C.2. And not
only so—but as the words Ila@es Xpicrov, in the
second instance, plainly imply that the death of Christ
was actually to be placed on Friday, March 25, U. C.
782, so must the words ἱένεσις Χρίστου in the first in-
stance, as plainly intimate that the birth of Christ, in
the opinion of Hippolytus, actually happened on Wed-
nesday, April 2, U.C. 752.
The testimony of Hippolytus, therefore, is to be
added to that of the other authorities, which shew
that, at this early period, the common opinion placed
the Nativity in the spring, at the time of the Jewish
passover itself. The coincidence, at least, between the
testimony of his canon, and that of the author, De
Computo Paschali, which terminates only five years
later, is striking, and may justly be appealed to in con-
firmation of the preceding exposition. The latter places
the Nativity on a Wednesday, as well as this.
It is no objection to the truth of the above explana-
tion of the calendar, that the application of the cycle
in question is liable to error for periods even of sixteen
years; and much more for periods of 112 or 224
years. It is not the case, for example, that the same
paschal full moon, which, U. C. 976, happened on
April 2, fell previously on the same day, U.C.752. If
it happened at all, it happened the year before, U.C.
751: and so in the other instance, that of the paschal
full moon, U.C. 1006. If that ever occurred before, it
was U.C. 781: not U.C. 782.
Nor is it any objection that (Reliquiz Sacre, i. 136.
Annott. in Melitonis fragm. p.115) a fragment is quoted
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 625
and referred to Hippolytus, which places the Nativity
A. M. 5500, and the Passion A. M. 5533. This frag-
ment would be directly at variance with the Latin
Chronicle and with the canon. But Hippolytus The-
banus, or the younger, did certainly suppose the Nati-
vity A. M. 5500, and the Passion A. M. 5533. It is
probable therefore that the fragment really belongs to
him, and is by mistake only ascribed to Hippolytus
Portuensis.
ARCHELAUS—Nec in aliquo remoratus Dominus
noster Jesus, intra unius anni spatium languentium
multitudines reddidit sanitati, mortuos luci—Archelai
et Manetis disputatio, cap. 34t.
Ut autem credas; cum Discipuli ejus per annum in-
tegrum manserunt cum eo, quare nullus ipsorum pro-
cidit super faciem suam, sicut paulo ante dicebas, sed
in una hora illa, quando sicut sol τερριεπάμηι vultus
ejus? Ibid. 50".
The rise of the Manichean heresy is placed by Cyril
of Jerusalem, ἐπὶ Πρόβου βασιλέως, exactly seventy years
before his own time*. Probus’ reign bears date A. D.
276: and he was consul first, A. D. 277. In another
passage he says the apostles died two hundred years
before the time of Manes ¥. And hence we are enabled
to correct a note of time which appears in the Dispu-
tatio itself: Qui enim dixerat se non multo post mis-
surum esse Paraclitum, invenitur post ¢recentos (re-
scribe ducentos) et eo amplius annos misisse hunc,
sicut ipse sibi testimonium perhibet”*. That the dis-
* Epiphanius, i.617. C. Ma- i. 636. C—638. B. he reckons
nichei, i. dates the rise of this it 276 years according to some,
sect in the fourth of Aurelian: and 246 according to others,
t Reliquie Sacre, iv. 218. Archelaus was bishop of Caschara in Mesopo-
tamia, Socrates, Εἰ. H. i. xxii. 56. D. u Ibid. 264. x Catechesis vi. 12. 1. 26.
Cf. iv. 22. p. 67. 1.1. Also vi. capp. 13—r8. y Catechesis xvi. 4. p. 228. 1. 4,
z Caput 27. p. 201.
VOL. III. ss
626
Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
- putation was held in the reign of Probus, appears from
capp. 27 and 28°. Cf. Jerome, De Scriptoribus Eccle-
siasticis, 1xxii. Operum iv. Pars ii*. 120.
ARNOBIUS—Trecenti sunt anni ferme, minus vel
plus aliquid, ex quo ccepimus esse Christiani, et terra-
rum in orbe censeri.
p-9. 1. 2.
Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, i.
AXtatis urbs Roma cujus esse in annalibus indi-
citur ? annos ducit quinquaginta et mille, aut non mul-
tum ab his minus. Ibid. ii. 94. J. 24.
from the Ascension, to the time
of Manes, Aurelian, and Pro-
bus. The former of these dates
might hold good, if referred to
the Nativity ; the latter, if to
the Passion: Cf. 698. B. lxxvii.
Operum ii.176. A. De Mensuris
et Ponderibus, xx : he dates the
Disputatio of Manes and Arche-
laus in the ninth of Valerian and
Gallienus. Suidas, under Μά-
νης, places the appearance of
Manes in the reign of Aurelian:
but in the fragment relating to
Nerva (Νέρβας) he dates it un-
der Nerva, at the time of St.
John’s return from banishment.
Probably in this last instance he
has confounded Manes with Ce-
rinthus. The Paschal Chroni-
con has the same statement, i.
46g. 1. 10. Jerome, in Chronico,
fixes the rise of Manicheanism
to the second of Probus; both
by other criteria, and by speci-
fying the synchronism of Atre
Antiochene 325, coincident with
it. Atre Antiochenx 325 would
expire, October, U.C. 1030,
which was actually the second
of Probus. Eusebius’ Arme-
nian Chronicon has the same
date * generally with Jerome.
Cassiodorus, in Chronico, dates
it A. D. 282, in the last
year of Probus. Julius Pol-
lux, 242, 244, dates the rise of
this heresy under Probus or
Carus: adding a Scholium, giv-
ing an account of the sect, its
founder, and distinctive pecu-
liarities, which is very like what
occurs on the same subject in
Socrates, E. H. i. xxii. 55.
Eusebius, E. H. vii. xxxi. 283.
places it generally about the be-
ginning of the reign of Diocle-
tian: and that it was actually
of recent date, about that time,
may be inferred from the exor-
dium of one of his Constitutions,
which occurs in the commentary
on St. Paul’s Epistles ascribed to
Ambrose, Operum ii. Appendix,
310. C. in Secundam ad Timo-
theum, iii. 6,7: Quippe cum
Diocletianus Imperator consti-
tutione sua designet, dicens:
Sordidam hance et impuram he-
resim, qu nuper, inquit, egressa
est de Perside. Manichzeanism
had spread very generally by
A. D. 355, in the reign of Con-
stantius. See Ammianus Mar-
cellinus, xv. 13. A. D. 355. and
Cf. Socrates, E. H. ii. xxviii.
119. B. and Theodorit, ii. xiv.
88, 89. A. D. 350.
a P. 202.
᾿
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 627
The age of Arnobius, therefore, is about U. C. 1050.
A.D. 297: for he follows the Varronian computation :
(cf. also lib. vii. 232. 1. 7.1) and consequently his date
for the beginning of Christianity is about U.C. '750.
B.C. 4. Jerome, in Chronico, places his acme in the
twentieth of Constantine, A. D. 325, or 326.
EvusEBIUS— loropeira δὲ ὁ πᾶς τῆς διδασκαλίας Kal
παραδοξοποιΐας ὁμοῦ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν χρόνος τριῶν ἥμισυ
γεγονὼς ἐτῶν, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἑβδομάδος ἥμισυ. τοῦτό πως
᾿Ιωάννης ὁ Εὐαωγγελιστὴς ἀκριβῶς ἐφιστᾶσιν αὐτοῦ τῷ εὐαγ-
γελίῳ παραστήσει. εἴη av οὖν ἑβδομὰς ἐτῶν μία ὁ πᾶς χρό-
νος τῆς μετὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ συνδιατριβῆς, ὅ τε πρὸ
τοῦ πάθους, καὶ ὁ μετὰ τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν αὐτοῦ. πρὸ
μὲν yap τοῦ πάθους ἐπὶ τρία καὶ ἥμισυ ἔτη τοῖς πᾶσιν ἑαυτὸν
παρέχων, μαθηταῖς τε καὶ τοῖς μὴ τοιούτοις, ἀναγέγραπται
wee μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν, τὸν ἴσον, ὡς εἰκὸς,
τῶν ἐτῶν χρόνον τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ μαθηταῖς καὶ ἀποστόλοις συνῆν,
ov ἡμερῶν τεσσαράκοντα ὀπτανόμενος αὐτοῖς καὶ συναλι-
ζόμενος, καὶ λέγων τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὡς “γοῦν
αἱ πράξεις τῶν ἀποστόλων περιέχουσιν. Demonstratio
Evangelica, viii. 400. B.
If Eusebius did not mean, in this passage, to assert
that there was an interval of half a week, or three
years and six months, between the resurrection and
the ascension, it must be confessed that he has ex-
pressed himself very obscurely. Nor is much light re-
flected on this obscurity by the commentary of Jerome
on Daniel ix, who has occasion to quote his opinion,
among other expositions of the prophecy of the seventy
weeks ἢ.
His meaning, however, may probably be collected
from Theodorit ©, who assigns a prophetical week to
the period between the commencement of our Lord’s
Ὁ Operum iii. 1111—1113 ad medium—1114 ad principium. ς Operum ii.
1245—1250—52. in Dan. ix.
Ss 2
628 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
personal ministry, and the stoning of Stephen: allow-
ing three years and an half to the duration of that
ministry, and another three years and an half to the
remaining interval, after which the apostles ceased to
preach exclusively to the Jews, and began to preach to
the rest of the world. The beginning of our Lord’s
ministry the same writer dates in the fifteenth of Tibe-
rius, U.C. 782; and therefore its close in the eight-
eenth or nineteenth, U.C. 78 or 786: and he specifies
his own age, immediately afterwards, as 440 years
later, about U. C. 1226, A. D. 473 *.
CYRILL OF JERUSALEM— Ep γαστρὶ μὲν παρθένου
"γέγονεν ὁ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἐννεαμηνιαῖος (6) χρόνος" ἀνὴρ δὲ
γέγονεν ὁ Κύριος τριάκοντα καὶ τρία ἔτη. Catechesis xii.
14. ad finem.
Cyrill, whose age, as we have seen, is about A. D.
340, thus estimates the length of our Lord’s ministry
at three years: for in another passage he supposes
him to have been baptized at thirty“. If the Historia
Ecclesiastica et Mystagogica, ascribed to him, be really
his, or represent his opinions rightly, he there places
the Nativity A. M. δδθ00 9.
JULIANUS IMPERATOR—O δὲ ᾿Ιησοῦς, ἀναπείσας τὸ
~ n~ A ww
χείριστον τῶν παρ᾽ ὑμῖν, ὀλίγους πρὸς τοῖς τριακοσίοις
* It is singular that Euse-
bius should maintain the whole
~duration of our Lord’s ministry
to have been three years and an
half, yet tell us, that the three
first Gospels contained only the
particulars of one year; viz.
that between the Baptism and
the Passion; and the fourth
Gospel only the particulars which
ἃ Catechesis vi. 11. p. 90. 1. 12.
preceded the Baptism. See E. H.
iii. 24.95.C.&c. This interval of
three years and an half between
the Baptism and the Ascension,
is recognised and assumed by
Arethas, in Rev. xx. 7. apud
CEcumenium, ii. 816. A. in one
of the explanations of the Thou-
sand years, there proposed.
e Caput 18. p. 330.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 629
ἐνιαυτοῖς ὀνομάζεται, ἐργασάμενος παρ᾽ ὃν ἔζη χρόνον ἔργον
οὐδὲν ἀκοῆς ἄξιον, εἰ μή τις οἴεται τοὺς κυλλοὺς καὶ τυφλοὺς
ἰάσασθαι, καὶ δαιμονῶντας ἐφορκίζειν, ἐν Βηθσαϊδᾷ καὶ ἐν
Βηθανίᾳ ταῖς κώμαις, τῶν μεγίστων ἔργων εἶναι. Julianus
Imperator, apud Cyrillum, lib. vi. 191. 1). E.
If it be true, as Jerome informs us, that this work
of Julian’s was written 7 expeditione Persica, its date
was A. D. 362 or 363.
EprpHANIUS—Epiphanius’ date for the Nativity is
viii Ides of January, (January 6,) in the forty-second
of Augustus, U.C. 752, and in the thirty-third of
Herod: for the visit of the Magi, and the flight into
Egypt, it is two years later, in the thirty-fifth of
Herod: for the Baptism, it is vi Ides of November,
(November 8,) U.C. 781: for the Passion, it is xiii
Kalends of April, March 20, U. C. 784: the age of
our Lord at his Baptism, he supposes to be twenty-
nine years and ten months exactly: his age at the
Passion, thirty-two years and seventy-four days: and
the precise length of his ministry, from his Baptism,
November 8, U. C. 781, to his death, March 20, U. C.
784, to be two years, one hundred and thirty-four days.
These things are so often asserted by him that it would
be endless to refer to particular passages. Vide how-
ever, i. 432. A. Alogi, x—450. xxix: ii. 135. Anacepha-
leeosis, cxxiii: 169. B. De Mensuris et Ponderibus, xii.
The mistake of Epiphanius in placing the birth of
Christ in the thirty-third of Herod, four years before
the death of that king, might possibly arise from his
confounding together the two lengths of his reign,
thirty-four years, and thirty-seven. Our Saviour, I
believe, was actually born in the thirty-third of Herod,
as dated from U.C. 717—one year before his death *.
* It appears from Arethas, in Rev. xii. 14. apud Cicumenium,
Ss 3
630 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
Another singular mistake of his, is, that though he
certainly places the Passion U. C. 784, he places it
Coss. Vinicio et Longino: and these were consuls
U.C. 783. The true date of the Passion, I believe, to
be this very consulate. Epiphanius, however, by a re-
markable oversight, distinguishes the consulate of the
two Gemini from that of Rufus and Rubellius, or ra-
ther Fusius and Rubellius, who were in reality the
-same persons. Hence, though he has made no mistake
in his supposed year of the Passion, he has assigned it
to the consuls of the year preceding.
The Ancoratus, we may observe, is quoted in the
work Adversus Hereses: 751. D. Ariani, xxvii: and
887. D. Pneumatomachi, ii. Otherwise they were
written very near to each other, the date of the former
being ἄγε Diocletianze 90, and that of the latter το
Diocletianz 92. Vide ii. 1. B: 64. A. lx: 123. B. cxxi:
and i. 2.C. D. caput ii: Epistola ad Epiphanium: 404,
A. Cataphrygastz, ii: 638. A. Manichei, xx.
PrupENTIUs—Quid est quod artum circulum
| Sol jam recurrens deserit?
Christusne terris nascitur
Qui lucis auget tramitem ?
Heu quam fugacem gratiam
Festina volvebat dies!
Quam pene subductam facem
Sensim recisa exstinxerat !
Ceelum nitescit letius,
Gratatur et gaudens humus:
ii. 757. B.C. that such commen-
tators, as understood the woman
travailing with child, in the Re-
velation, of the mother of our
Lord, explained the three years
and an half of her sojourn in the
desert, after the birth of the
child, of our Lord’s, and the
rest of the Holy Family’s sojourn
in Egypt for the last three
years and an half of the reign of
Herod. The length of this
sojourn in Egypt is also sup-
posed to have been three years,
in the Apecryphal Evangelium
Infantie, capp. xxv. xxvi. See
the Codex Apocryphus, i. 187,
188.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 631
Scandit gradatim denuo
Jubar priores lineas.
Prudentius ‘, Cathemerinon xi. 1: Hymnus ad viii. Kal.
Jan. as some codices have it: Natalis Domini, as
others.
Prudentius was born A. D. 348, and published these
poems at fifty-seven: A.D. 404. |
The Apostolical Constitutions, v. 13, fix the Nativity
to the 25th of the ninth month, and the Epiphany to
the 6th of the tenth. Augustin: Deinde natus est
Christus cum jam inciperent crescere dies: natus est
Johannes quando coeperunt minui dies; that is, on
Dec. 25 and June 24, respectively.
The latter writer considered our Lord’s ministry to
have lasted only one year; which follows both from
his placing the Passion Coss. Geminis, and from this
passage in his Epistles": A nativitate autem Domini
hodie computantur anni ferme quadringenti viginti, a
resurrectione autem vel adscensione ejus anni plus
minus cccxe. This places the Ascension thirty years
after the Nativity ; and no more.
‘Exatoorh ἐννενηκοστῆ τετάρτη Ὀλυμπιάδι, Ρωμαίων
Αὐγούστου Καίσαρος βασιλεύοντος, “γεγέννηται κατὰ σάρκα
ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦς Χριστός. Cyrillus contra Julianum,
lib. 1.14. A.
Olympiad 194 answers to B.C. 4—A.D.1. U.C.
750—U.C. 754, and which of these years is meant
must be doubtful.
The πολιτεία of Metrophanes and Alexander, apud
Photium, Bibliotheca, Codex 256. p. 469. 1. 17, places
the persecution of Diocletian in the nineteenth of his
reign, and anno Christi 305. This supposes the Na-
_ £ Operum i. 79. g Operum iii. Pars iia. 402. B. in Johannem Tractatus
xiv. 5. Cf. v. 1152. E. Sermo 287. 4. h Operum ii. 748. E.F. Epistole,
199. 20. Cf. iii. 36. B. De Doctrina Christiana, ii. 42.
Ss 4
632 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
᾿ tivity to be two years before the vulgar era; viz. U.C.
752, or B.C, @.
To δέ ye ἡμέτερον “γένος, τὸ τῶν Χριστιανῶν λέγω, πρὸ
τετρακοσίων μὲν ἐτῶν τὴν ἀρχὴν érxev—Diodorus, bishop
of Tarsus, κατὰ εἰμαρμένης, apud Photii Bibliothecam,
Codex 223. p. 218. 1. 23.
Cassiodorus in Chronicis places the birth of Christ
Augusti xli. Coss. Lentulo et Messala; both which
dates, as he reckons the reign of Augustus at 56 years,
coincide with U.C. 751.
The Martyrium Pauli Apostoli, prefixed to Gicume-
nius in Novum Testamentum, dates his martyrdom, at
Rome, ἐπὶ Νέρωνος, on the fifth of the Syro-Macedonian
Panemus, or Egyptian Epiphi, and the 29th of the
Roman June, in the thirty-sixth year τοῦ σωτηρίου πά-
θους, and the sixty-ninth year τῆς τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν
"Incod Χριστοῦ παρουσίας : three hundred and thirty
years before the date of the Martyrium itself, which is
specified as the fourth consulate of Arcadius, and the
third. of Honorius, in the ninth year of the Roman
Indiction.
According to the Fasti, the consulate in question
was A.D. 396: and A.D. 396 was also the ninth
year current of the Roman Indiction. On this prin-
ciple, St. Paul’s martyrdom must be dated, A.D. 396
minus 330, that is, A. D. 66, U.C. 819: our Saviour’s
Passion, A. D. 66 minus 36, A. D. 30. U.C. 783: and
our Saviour’s birth, U.C. 819 minus 69, U.C. 750,
B.C. 4: dates, which, from whatever quarter obtained,
yet according to the conclusions which we have la-
boured to establish in other parts of the present work,
must be admitted to be remarkably correct.
It is proper, however, to observe, that the Paschal
Chronicon, i. 566, has a remark on the year of the
same consulate, which makes 335 years complete from
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 633
the martyrdom of Peter and Paul to the date in ques-
tion. But the martyrdom of St. Peter as well as of
St.Paul is alluded to there ; and of the other synchron-
isms, specified above, nothing is said.
I may be allowed, perhaps, to embrace this oppor-
tunity of quoting from the Evangelium Infantiz, in
the Codex Apocryphus, i. 169, a date which also places
the Nativity U.C. 750. Caput ii. it is said, Anno au-
tem trecentesimo nono ere Alexandri edixit Augustus,
ut describeretur unusquisque in patria sua. It then
proceeds to speak of the Holy Family’s repairing to
Bethlehem, in obedience to this decree, and of Christ’s
being born there. The era Alexandri there referred
to, is the zra Seleucidarum: which bears date U. C.
442, B.C. 312. The 309th year of that zra would
consequently begin to bear date U.C. 750, B.C. 4. It
is observable that the same apocryphal work (see
capp. ii. and iii.) placed the Nativity in the evening or
night time.
The antiquity of this apocryphal production may
entitle its testimony to some degree of weight, upon a
mere matter of fact, like the above. There is reason
to believe that the Greek original, from which the
Arabic version was made, and through that, the Evan-
gelium Infantize, such as we have it translated in Fabri-
cius’ Codex Apocryphus, was known to Irenzus. See
the Prolegomena of Fabricius: i. 128, and sqq.
St. JOoHN—If there is reason to suppose that the
evangelist St. John was either of the same age with our
Saviour, or not much younger than he, when he was
called to be a disciple; the time of the birth of St.
John, if that can be probably determined, will so far
be an argument for the time of the birth of our Sa-
viour.
634 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
That this apostle survived until the beginning of
the reign of Trajan, is affirmed by a number of ancient
and competent witnesses. |
Irenzus twice asserts that St. John continued at
Ephesus or in Asia, μέχρι τῶν Τραϊανοῦ χρονῶν Ἔἰ: and
once that he saw the Apocalypse, πρὸς τῷ τέλει τῆς Ao-
Eusebius, Chronicon Armeno-Lati-
num, repeats the former statement after Irenzeus, ad
annum Trajani 1; but Jerome, in Chronico, ad an-
num Trajani iii: and both he and Jerome place the
banishment of St.John, and the date of his Apoca-
lypse, in the thirteenth or fourteenth of Domitian.
Clemens Alexandrinus certainly bore a similar testi-
mony; and by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History
he is said to have defined the precise year of Trajan,
in his tractate, Quisnam dives salvetur? where how-
ever it does not occur; nor does Eusebius repeat it
after him!. There is still extant, in the works of Cle-
ment, a remarkable story concerning St.John, the au-
thenticity of which I see no reason to question; and
which Clement ushers in with the following words:
΄ “- 4 , “
ἄκουσον μῦθον, οὐ μῦθον ἀλλὰ ὄντα λόγον, περὶ ᾿Ιωάννου τοῦ
μετιανοῦ ἀρχῆς κ᾿
ἀποστόλου παραδεδομένον καὶ μνήμη πεφυλαγμένον ἃ, It
is easy to collect from this narrative, that the fact re-
ever, whether Irenzus afhirmed
this particular fact. Certainly
it does not occur in his extant
remains. The Paschal Chroni-
con, as we shall see by and by,
* Julius Pollux, Chronicon,
204, has a statement to this ef-
fect: ἕως ἑβδόμου ἔτους Τραϊανοῦ
περιὴν 6 μακάριος ᾿Ιωάννης : which
is so connected with what im-
mediately precedes in the con-
text, as to seem to make part
with that of a quotation from
Ireneus. It is doubtful, how-
i Lib. ii. xxxix. 161. 1. 26: fii. iii. 205. 1. 1.
Cf. Eusebius, iii. 18. 88. D.
these testimonies.
has the same date for the death
of St. John: and probably both
that and Pollux took it from a
common authority.
k Lib. v. xxx. 449. I. 20.
LE. H. iii. 23. 91. D. Cf. Syncellus, i. 653. 1. 6. for both
m Operum ii. 958. Quis dives salvetur ? xlii. Cf. Eusebius,
iii. 23. 91. &c. and Chrysostom, i. 30. E. 31. A. Ad Theodorum Lapsum, i. τό.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians. 635
corded could not have happened until some years at
least, after St. John’s return from banishment; (and
that is supposed to be after the death of the tyrant
Domitian;) and that St.John was then a very old
man *, :
Tertullian has not mentioned the time of St. John’s
return from banishment, or of his death; though he is
the most ancient authority who asserts the fact of his
being thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, before he
was banished ἢ; a statement also made by Jerome, but
whether from Tertullian, does not appear ° +.
Origen simply attests that St. John was condemned
by the Roman emperor to banishment at Patmos, and
saw the Apocalypse while he was there?.
The Acta of Timothy, the first bishop of Ephesus,
of which Photius has preserved an abstract4, place the
martyrdom of Timothy towards the end of the reign
of Domitian; the recall of St. John from banishment,
under Nerva; and his death at Ephesus, in the reign
of Trajan. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, bears abun-
dant testimony to this latter fact; and that St. John
* His great age is likewise hoc, Filioli, diligite alterutrum.
implied in the characteristic
anecdote, related of him by Je-
rome, iv. Pars i. 314. ad medi-
um, in Gal. vi.: Beatus Johannes
Evangelista,’ quum Ephesi mo-
raretur usque ad ultimam sene-
ctutem ; et vix inter discipulorum
manus ad Ecclesiam deferretur,
nec possetiin plura vocem verba
contexere, nihil aliud per singu-
las solebat proferre collectas, nisi
n Operum ii. 46. De Prescriptionibus Hereticorum, 36.
+ Yet, Operum v. 16. Apolo-
geticus, 5. the recall of St. John
is placed by Tertullian virtually
under the reign of Domitian.
After speaking of Nero’s perse-
cution as the first of all—he
continues, Tentaverat et Domi-
tianus, portio Neronis de crude-
litate, sed qua et homo, facile
coeptum repressit, restitutisetiam
quos relegaverat.
o Operum iv.
Pars i. 92. ad calcem in Matt. xx. Cf. however Pars 115. Adversus Jovinianum i.
169. ad principium, which quotes Tertullian for the fact.
q Codex 254. p. 468.
A. In Matt. tom. xvi. 6.
p Operum iii. 720.
636 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
both died and was buried at Ephesus': which is suf-
ficient to discredit the tradition, however ancient, that
he never died, but was translated like Enoch and
Elijah.
Jerome, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis’ places his ba-
nishment in the fourteenth of Domitian ; his return, un-
der Nerva; and his death at Ephesus, sixty-eight years
after the Passion. As Jerome’s date for the Passion is
U.C. 784, this places the death of St. John, U. C. 852,
in the second of Trajan. The same dates appear in his
Chronicon. In another passage also‘, which has been
produced at length already", he mentions an opinion
which included the half of a prophetical week, that
is thirty-five years, between the commencement of the
Jewish war under Nero, and the death of St. John, in
the time of Trajan. From U.C. 819, thirty-five years
would bring us to U. C. 854, in the fourth of Trajan.
Augustin reckons it 320 years to his own time, since
the composition of that one of St.John’s Epistles,
which contained the declaration, 19} 15 the last time*:
and 420 years to the same time from the birth of
Christ. On this principle, he supposed the epistle to
have been written one hundred years after the birth of
Christ : that is, as his date for the Nativity is U.C.
752, he dates the composition of the epistle, U. C. 852,
and therefore considered St. John to be still living in
the second of Trajan’. He adds; Hue accedit, quia
inspecta diligenter ecclesiastica historia, reperitur Jo-
hannes apostolus longe ante fuisse defunctus, quam
quinque millia quingenti anni a generis humani ex-
ordio complerentur.
Theophylact’s date for the Gospel of St. John, thirty-
r Eusebius, E. H. iii. 31. 102. D.: v. 24. 191. C. 5. Cap. ix. Operum iv.
Pars ii#. 105. Cf. Ibid. 168. ad caleem, Adversus Jovinianum i. t Operum 111.
1114. in Dan. ix. u Supra page 617. x 1 John ii. 18. y Operum i.
747. G. Epistole, 199. 18: 748. Ei. F. Ibid. 20.
Opinions of the most ancient Christians.
637
two years after the Ascension, U.C. 784, would place
its composition, U. C. 816: but if referred to the date
of the destruction of Jerusalem, U.C. 823, it would
place it U.C. 855, in the fifth of Trajan. Suidas, under
the article ᾿Ιωάννης, supposes the composition of the
Gospel after his return from Patmos; when he was
one hundred years old; and his death at one hundred
and twenty*. The Paschal Chronicon places the
banishment under Domitian; the recall in the first of
Nerva; and the death in the seventh of Trajan, se-
venty-two years after the Ascension; when St. John
was one hundred years and seven months old*. As
this Chronicon dates the Ascension U.C. 785, these
two notes of time meet together in U.C. 857. Hip-
polytus, περὶ τῶν ιβ΄ ἀποστόλων, makes St. John one
hundred and six years old at his death*. <A fragment
of Hippolytus the younger” makes him one hundred
and ten; though it places his death under Domitian.
To judge, therefore, from all these testimonies, it
seems the most probable opinion that St. John survived
until the second or third of Trajan at least; and that
he was one hundred years old, and upwards, at the time
of his death. In this case, he must have been born U.C.
751, or 752, and he would be a year or two younger
* So likewise the treatise as- places the banishment to Patmos
cribed to Chrysostom, (Operum
vii. Spuria, 231.C. De S. Joanne
Apostolo,) and Dorotheus, bishop
of Tyre, (Theophylact, Operum
i.500,) from the former of which
the passage in Suidas seems to
have been copied. Dorotheus
in the reign of Trajan—though
he mentions the opinion also
which placed it under Domitian.
The banishment Suidas (Aoperia-
vos) places under Domitian, the
recall under Nerva: cf. also in
Νέρβας.
3
2 i.467.1.20—470. 1.19. Cf. however, 461. 1.6. where he is supposed to have spent
nine years in Ephesus, before his banishment, fifteen in Patmos, and twenty-six
at Ephesus after his return; which is dated U. C. 822, in the first of Vespasian.
Hence his death would be U. C. 848, in the fourteenth of Domitian ; at the time
when other authorities suppose him to have been banished. ἃ Operum i.
Appendix, p. 41. e Cedreno. b Ibid. 49.
638 Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
than our Lord ; to which conclusion his history, so far
as it is related, would a priori seem to conduct us.
There is every reason to believe that he was the
youngest of the apostles, and it is not improbable that
he was even younger than our Saviour himself. The
two traditions, of his death in the seventh of Trajan
U.C. 857, and of his age, at the time, one hundred
and six—would accord wonderfully with this conjec-
ture; for he must have been born, in that case, U.C.
751, and have been just one year younger than our
Lord. 3
Epiphanius, indeed, represents him to have been
ninety years old, when he returned from banishment ;
but as he places his return under Claudius, this is so
material an error as to discredit his testimony alto-
gether*. Besides which, even he, in other parts of
his works, asserts that St. John survived to the reign
of Trajan‘. And, perhaps, his meaning in the former
instance is simply this; that St.John composed his
Gospel, after his return from banishment, at ninety
years of age—that is, he was ninety at least when he
wrote his Gospel, though not necessarily when he re-
turned—for he speaks of several years being spent in
Asia even after the return, yet before the composition
of the Gospel.
This supposes, it is true, a ten years’ interval be-
tween the composition of his Gospel and his death ; an
interval which would, perhaps, have been more cor-
rect of the time of his banishment and his death. For
if he returned U.C. 849, in the year which Dio assigns
to the recall of the exiles, under Nerva®; and lived to
x
* Yet Hippolytus περὶ τῶν 8 have been composed in Patmos.
ἀποστόλων supposes the Gospel, Theophylact also supposes the
as well as the Revelation, to same of the Gospel: i. 504. A. B.
ς 1. 434. A. Alogi, xii: cf. 456. A. Ibid. xxxiii. di. 149. A. Ebionei, xxiv :
636. A. Manichei, xix. 6 Ixviii. 1.
639
Opinions of the most ancient Christians.
be one hundred and six years old in U.C. 857—he
survived his return eight years, and his banishment,
dated U.C. 847 or 848, nine or ten.
It is probable that his Gospel was composed in the
third or fourth of Trajan; which Jerome seems to de-
signate as the time of his death, perhaps because tra-
dition had handed it down as the time of the com-
position of the Gospel. The fourth of Trajan, U.C.
854, would accord with the thirty-second year current
from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, U.C.
823.
The question of the time of the death of St. John is
connected with that of the date of the martyrdoms of
Ignatius and of Polycarp respectively : more especially
with that of the former ; which some authorities place so
early as the eighth of Trajan, U.C. 858. This question
will be discussed elsewhere. Some regard also is due,
in considering the time of the death of St. John, to
the historical anecdote respecting him and the heretic
Cerinthus, according to Irenzus, on the traditionary
authority of Polycarp, (iii. iii. 204. Cf. Eusebius, E. H.
iii. 28. 100. C. D.); or the heretic Ebion, according
to Epiphanius (i. 148. Ebionzi, xxiv.) The antiquity
of either of these heresiarchs is great enough for the
circumstance in question to have happened early in the
reign of Trajan*. >
-* There is a remarkable pas-
sage, respecting the date of the
Apocalypse, and other circum-
stances in the history of St.
John, which occurs in the com-
mentary on Revelation, compiled
by Arethas, bishop of Cesarea in
Cappadocia, from the work of
Andreas, a more ancient bishop
of the same see, and other au-
thorities of equal antiquity: a
commentary appended to Cicu-
menius in Novum Testamentum.
Tom. ii. 713. D—714. A. in
Rev. vii. 4. understanding the
144,000 there alluded to, of
such of the Jews as were de.
signed by the Divine Providence
to escape from the calamities
coming upon their unbelieving
countrymen, the commentary
proceeds: οὔπω yap ἡ. ὑπὸ ‘Po-
640
μαίων ἀπώλεια ᾿Ιουδαίους κατειλή-
φει, ὅτε καὶ οὗτος ὁ εὐαγγελιστὴς
ἐχρησμῳδεῖτο ταῦτα. καὶ οὐκ ἐν
Ἱερουσαλὴμ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ᾿Ιωνίᾳ, τῇ κατ᾽
Ἔφεσον. μετὰ γὰρ τὸ πάθος τοῦ
Κυρίου, δέκα καὶ τέσσαρα μόνα ἔτη
προσήδρευσεν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ, ὅσα
καὶ τὸ θεοδόχον τῆς τοῦ Κυρίου μη.--
τρὸς σκῆνος τῇ ἐνκαίρῳ ταύτῃ ζωῆ,
μετὰ τὸ πάθος καὶ τὴν ἀνάστασιν
τοῦ ἀφθόρου τόκου αὐτῆς, διετηρήθη.
7 καὶ συμπαρῆν ἅτε μητρὶ ὑπὸ
τοῦ Κυρίου αὐτῷ παραδεδομένῃ.
μετὰ γὰρ τὴν ἀποβίωσιν ταύτης,
οὐκ ἔτι τῇ ᾿Ιουδαίᾳ ἐμφιλοχωρῆσαι,
ἀλλὰ πρὸς "Ἔφεσον μεταστῆναι av-
τὸν λόγος. Kal’ ἣν, ὡς εἴρηται, καὶ
τὰ τῆς προκειμένης ᾿Αποκαλύψεως
ἐνεργηθῆναι, τῶν μελλόντων οὖσαν
δήλωσιν, καθ᾽ ὅτι μετὰ τὸ τεσσα-
ρακοστὸν ἔτος τῆς ἀναλήψεως τοῦ
Κυρίου, κατὰ τῶν “Ἑβραίων ἡ θλίψις
συνηνέχθη.
It is here supposed that the
date of the Apocalypse was
prior to the destruction of Je-
rusalem ; which, if that revela-
tion was seen in Patmos, near
the coast of Asia Minor, where
Ephesus was situated, would
imply that St. John was banish-
ed thither under Nero, not un-
der Domitian: a conclusion con-
tradictory to what is observed
in this very commentary, in
Rev. i. 9. 11. 6564. Ὁ. of his
being banished under Domitian
(Cf. also, in Rev. ili. 10. ii. 682.
C.) as well as refuted by the
testimonies produced above,
which unanimously assign the
date of the Apocalypse to the
latter end of the reign of Domi-
tian.
By placing the destruction of
Jerusalem forty years after the
Ascension, this testimony dates
the Ascension U.C. 783. A. D.
30, which, upon our principles,
is correct. By supposing, too,
Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
that St.John continued in Je.
rusalem fourteen years after the
Ascension, without quitting it, it
virtually confirms the tradition
alluded to, Dissertation xv. vol.
li. 46, 47. that for fourteen
years after the Ascension, the
apostles as a body were not to
leave Jerusalem. It virtually
implies also that after the lapse
of fourteen years, so spent in
Jerusalem, they must all, or
part of them, have begun to set
out on their mission into other
parts of the world; just as we
assumed the commencement of
Paul and Barnabas’ first circuit
to the Gentiles, A. D. 44. U.C.
797-
Whether St. John, in particu-
lar, at the end of the same
period of time quitted Jerusa-
lem, along with the rest, to
preach elsewhere, is a question
which we have not the means
of determining. If he did, yet
we may collect from Galatians
li. 1. that he must have again
been present there, at the time
of St. Paul’s fourth visit, A. D.
52, twenty-two years after the
Ascension. But whether he
was also there at the time of
the intermediate council, Acts
xv. about A.D. 48. eighteen
years after the same date, must
be doubtful.
I cannot help thinking, in-
deed, that the true time when
the apostle St. John may be
supposed to have permanently
quitted Judea, is intimated at
Galatians ii. 9; and that both he
and St. Peter set out upon an
evangelical circuit of the Ro-
man empire, A.D. 52. in conse-
quence of the arrangement made
with St. Paul upon that occa-
sion of their meeting in com-
mon in Jerusalem. Immediate-
Opinions of the most ancient Christians.
ly after this meeting, we have
evidence of St. Peter’s preach-
ing successively in Asia, Co-
rinth, Rome, and Egypt; and
it is to be presumed that St.
John was not idle meanwhile,
but preaching also either in the
same parts or elsewhere, at the
same time. Nor does it appear
that either of these apostles was
still at Jerusalem, A. D. 56,
when St. Paul again visited it
for the fifth time.
It would not follow from this
fact, however, that the Virgin
Mary in particular must have
been still alive twenty-one or
twenty-two years after the As-
cension, A. D.51 or 52. If she
died about A. D. 44. fourteen
years after the Ascension, she
would still be sixty-three years
old at her death ; at least if the
tradition alluded to elsewhere
(Dissertation xvi. vol. ii. 88.)
that she was fifteen or sixteen,
at the time of the Annunciation,
is founded in truth. The testi-
mony of Arethas supposes her
to have died a natural death.
It knows nothing then of her
fabled translation or assump-
tion: which is so far an argu-
ment for its credibility. Con-
fer the Extract from Modestus,
bishop of Jerusalem, Photius,
Codex 275, p. 511. 1. 30.
There is no reason to sup-
pose that any apostle, and much
less the apostle St.John, had
preached at Ephesus, before the
beginning of St.Paul’s residence
there, A.D. 53. I should consi-
der it very improbable even that
any apostle had preached there,
much more permanently taken up
his abode there, up to the time
of St. Paul’s last Epistle to
Timothy ; written in the spring
quarter of the year of his mar-
VOL. III.
641
tyrdom, A.D. 66. On every ac-
count, the commencement of St.
John’s permanent residence at
Ephesus, is to be dated later
than the close of the personal
history of St. Paul; as far as we
have the means of tracing that
history : though how much later,
it may not be possible to say.
I should scarcely think it
worth while to quote the Life
of St.John by Symeon Meta-
phrastes, (Cf. Dorotheus, bishop
of Tyre, apud Theophylact, i.
500,) as it abounds in fabulous
particulars. Speaking of his
examination before Domitian,
and of his subsequent banish-
ment to Patmos, Symeon is si-
lent about the fact of his being
previously thrown into the cal-
dron of boiling oil. He asserts
the composition of his Gospel in
Patmos.
We may here add, that the
supposed Epistle of Dionysius
the Areopagite, Operum 11. 178,
179. Epistole, x. though it pro-
fesses to be addressed to St.
John, at that time in banish-
ment, and residing in Patmos,
throws no light on any of the
above questions. It concludes
with predicting merely his fu-
ture restoration to liberty; a
prediction for the credibility of
which the writer claims to be
considered an adequate voucher:
ἀξιόπιστος δὲ πάντως εἰμὶ τὰ mpoe-
γνωσμένα σοι ἐκ Θεοῦ καὶ μαθὼν καὶ
λέγων, ὅτι καὶ τῆς ἐν Πάτμῳ φυλα-
κῆς ἀφεθήσῃ, καὶ εἰς τὴν ᾿Ασιατίδα
γῆν ἐπανήξεις, καὶ δράσεις ἐκεῖ τοῦ
ἀγαθοῦ Θεοῦ μιμήματα, καὶ τοῖς μετὰ
σὲ παραδώσεις.
Maximus, in his Scholia on
this Epistle, pp. 180, 181, insti-
tutes a calculation to prove that
Dionysius was then about nine-
ty years old ; proceeding on the
Tt
642
᾿ supposition that he was twenty-
five, in the eighteenth of Tibe-
rius, when he observed the mi-
raculous darkness (of which we
have the account in the Epistle
to Polycarp, Operum ii. 88. Epi-
stole, vii. Cf. Dissertation xiv.
vol. i. 468, 469.) and that this
Epistle to St. John was writ-
ten sixty-four years and seven
months afterwards, in the last
year of Domitian: such being
the interval between the eight-
Appendix. Dissertation Thirteenth.
eenth of Tiberius, A. D. 32. a
vere, and the last year of Do-
mitian, A.D. 96. ab auctumno.
He quotes Irenzus and Clemens
Alexandrinus, (locis citatis) to
the fact of the banishment of
St. John to Patmos in the reign
of Domitian. Pachymeres, too,
in his paraphrase of the Epistle,
p- 184, supposes St. John ba-
nished about the last of Domi-
tian, and released from exile in
the first of Nerva.
a oe
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATION XIV.
On the date of the batile of Pharsalia.
Vide Dissertation xiv. vol. i. page 524. last line of note.
Ir is not a new opinion that Cesar reformed the
calendar by the introduction of sixty-seven, and not of
eighty-nine days. The same hypothesis was maintained
by Guischard, in his controversy with De Lo-Looz ;
and he has arranged the chronology of the interme-
diate period between the commencement of the civil
war, U.C. 705, and the death of Cesar, U. C. 7103; in
conformity to it®.
It is observable, however, that while this gentleman
supposed the battle of Pharsalia to have been fought
on the ninth of August in the unrectified year; he
placed the death of Pompey on the twenty-ninth of
September in the same. This was to introduce be-
tween the two events an interval of forty-nine or fifty
days: a supposition too improbable to be for a mo-
ment entertained. The testimony of history is unani-
mous to the effect that the death of Pompey ensued
upon the battle, with as little delay as the circum-
stances of the case would admit. A fortnight’s in-
terval is the utmost which can be supposed between
these two events; an interval of six or seven weeks is
altogether incredible.
The proof of this assertion may be easily made out,
if the reader will give me leave to trace the course of
proceedings, from the time when Cesar took the field
against Pompey, with a little more minuteness than I
a Vide the Preface to Oberlinus’s Cesar, page x.
Tt?
644 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
‘before considered to be necessary: assuming only that
U.C. 706, the year of the battle, was an ordinary in-
tercalary year; and consequently that the nominal
dates which occur before the proper time of the inter-
calation in that year, are sixty-seven days in advance
of the true, and after it, are forty-four or forty-
five.
Pridie nonas Januarias, Cesar set sail from Brun-
disium’; that is, January 4, in the year of Numa,
U.C. 706; but October 29, in the rectified Julian year,
U.C. 705.
Jamque hiems adpropinquabat; vx. longo inter-
posito spatio®, after his arrival on the opposite coast.
This would be nominally February, U.C. 706, really
December, U.C. 705.
Pompeius . . iter in hiberna . . habebat; that is at
Dyrrhachium. Cesar also was preparing sub pellibus
hiemare*, at the same place. We will suppose this
was nominally the end of February, U.C. 706; but
really the end of December, U.C. 705. The com-
mencement of the winter season, that is, the ingress
of the brumal quarter, which the rectified calendar
dates from December 25, will coincide with this point
of time.
After this, Multi jam menses transierant, et hiems
jam precipitaverat*; yet Cesar had not been joined
by his troops from Brundisium. Precipitaverat means
here, had drawn to a close; as precipitat in Virgil,
means, 7s drawing to a close:
Et jam nox humida ccelo
Precipitat, suadentque cadentia sidera somnos *.
Aineid, ii. 8.
* Cf. Ciceronis Aratea Fra- cebit visere nocte, | Ut sese e-
gmenta, Apud Aratum, ii. 76, mergens ostendat Scorpius alto.
77: Nam prope precipitante li- The original, Phenomena, 303,
b B.C. iii. 6. ς Ibid. 9. ἃ Ibid. 11. 13. e Ibid. 25.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 645
So Ovid, Tristium i. iii. 47.
Jamque more spatium nox precipitata negabat,
Versaque ab axe suo Parrhasis Arctos erat.
Servius, Ad Georgic. i. 43: Nam anni quatuor sunt
tempora, divisa in ternos menses: qui ipsorum tempo-
rum talem faciunt discretionem : ut primo mense Veris
novum dicatur Ver: secundo, adultum: tertio, praeceps.
sicut etiam Sallustius dicit ubique: nova estas, adulta,
preceps. sic Autumnus novus, adultus, preeceps. item
Hyems nova, adulta, praeceps vel extrema ἢ ἢ.
Many months cannot well denote less than three or
four since Ceesar first set out; which, combined with
the signification of precipitaverat, must imply that the
spring quarter was arrived, or at hand. If U.C. 706,
therefore, was intercalary, the course of events since
Cesar’s departure from Brundisium, is brought nomi-
nally to the end of the intercalary month Merkedonius
at least, if not into the ensuing March.
It makes in favour of this conclusion that the same
chapter tells us, Sepe flaverant venti, quibus necessa-
rio committendum existimabat. These winds would
be south, or south-west, the time of whose blowing
was commonly the beginning of spring®. When An-
304, stands as follows: σῆμα δέ
τοι κείνης ὥρης καὶ μηνὸς ἐκείνου, |
Σκορπίος ἀντέλλων εἴη πυμάτης ἐπὶ
νυκτός. Again, loco citato, Nam
Canis infesto sequitur vestigia
cursu, | Precipitantem agitans
oriens. Where also the Phzeno-
mena, 339, has, αὐτὰρ dy’ αἰεὶ |
Σείριος ἐξόπιθεν φέρεται μετιόντι
ἐοικὼς, | καί οἱ ἐπαντέλλει, καί μιν
κατιόντα διώκει. In another pas-
sage of thesameFragmenta, 1.348,
the verb is used actively with
its proper case: Que simul exi-
stant cernes, qua tempore eodem
f Cf. ad Aneid. iii. 8: v. 295.
| Precipitent obitum nocturno
tempore nosces. The same idiom
occurs repeatedly in Ammianus
Marcellinus; though his Latin
is not to be quoted as the most
classical specimen of the lan-
guage.
* Frontonis Opera inedita,
pars i. p.69. Epp. ad Marcum
Cesarem, lib. ii. 1: Id vespera et
concubia nocte, dum se intem-
pesta nox, ut ait M. Porcius,
precipitat, eodem modo perse-
verat.
& Pliny, H.N. ii. 47.
et 35
646 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
.tony and Kalenus had at last set sail with the fleet,
nactt austrum, and were just arrived off the opposite
coast of Epirus ... idem auster increbuit ... auster, qui
per biduum flaverat, in africum se vertit ®.
There was a certain time in every year, at which
the sea was considered to become shut; and another,
equally well defined, when it was considered to be-
come open. These two periods Vegetius, De Re Mili-
tari', distinguishes by the setting of the Pleiads, No-
vember 11, on the one hand, and the vi Ides of March,
as the earliest point of time—or the rising of the Pleiads,
April 2, or May 10, or 13, or 27, on the other *. This
last time in the Athenian year\was in the month Muny-
chion; which partly corresponded to March. Demo-
sthenes : ai δὲ λήξεις τῶν δικῶν τοῖς ἐμπόροις ἔμμηνοί εἰσιν,
ἀπὸ τοῦ βοηδρομιῶνος μέχρι τοῦ μουνυχιῶνος, ἵνα παραχρῆμα
τῶν δικαίων τυχόντες ἀνάγωνται ΐ. And again : μουνυχιῶνος
μηνὸς μέλλων ἐκπλεῖν τὸν ὕστερον ἔκπλουν “. But tes-
timonies to this point will be produced abundantly
elsewhere". The effect of them all is to render it al-
most certain, that, in the ordinary course of things,
Ceesar could not expect to be joined by his fleet, before
the middle of March in the tropical year.
The events between this junction, and the com-
mencement of the siege of Dyrrhachium °, will bring
us at least to the end of March truly; but to the mid-
dle of May, forty-five days later, nominally. The siege
would consequently begin about the first of April.
Jamque frumenta maturescere incipiebant?. Theo-
phrastus : ὥραι δὲ τοῦ σπόρου τῶν πλείστων δύο. πρώτη δὲ
καὶ μάλιστα ἡ περὶ πλειάδων δύσιν 4: which in the Julian
year would be about November 11. The grain so
h B. C. iii. 26. i Lib. v. 9. k Cf. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 169. v. 599. Pliny,
Η. N. ii. 47. 1 Oratio xxxiii. 29. m xlix. 7. Cf. 52. n Vide the notes
to Dissertation xix. Appendix. ο Lib. iii. 30—43. P Lib. iii. 49.
q Historia Plantarum, viii. 1. p. 152.
a i ΤΕΥ
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 647
sown he supposes to ripen, περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, παρὰ τοῖς
πλείστοις (κριθαὶ μὲν ἐν) ὀγδόῳ (June). πυροὶ δὲ ἔτι προσ-
επιλαμβάνουσιν τ, (July or August.) Pliny napeste these
statements verbatim after him 5.
On this principle, the corn in Epirus, as we may
presume, would not ordinarily be ripe before July or
August, nor begin to ripen before the middle of June:
and this I should consider to be the time here im-
plied *. The same conclusion follows from the allusion
to the @stus, or summer heats, as drying up the
springs: and from the fact that the various kinds of
seeds which Pompey’s troops had sown within their
own entrenchments, to provide fodder for their horses,
were both grown up and consumed *.
Cesar breaks up his camp before Dyrrhachium Υ ;
when the siege had lasted, according to Suetonius, per
quatuor pene menses*. If it began about the com-
mencement of April, it would be raised about the
middle of July.
From subsequent notes of time*, we may safely
infer that a week afterwards elapsed before he began
* Sed patitur sevam, veluti erant.
circumdatus arcta | Obsidione
famem, nondum surgentibus al-
tam | In segetem culmis. Lu-
can, Pharsalia, vi. 108. which de-
scribes the situation of Cesar’s
troops during the siege.
When Cesar was in Spain
the year before, contending with
Afranius and Petreius, we find
him observingt, Tempus erat
anni difficillimum, quo neque
frumenta in hibernis erant, ne-
que multum a maturitate ab-
r Historia Plantarum, viii. 3. 155.
i. 28. 1.17. De Mundi Opificio:
Virgil, Georgica, i. 219—226.
y iii. 75. Z Julius Cesar, 35.
Now from the speech of
Curio to his troops in Africa ¥,
it appears that Cesar was not
forty days in Spain after his ar-
rival there, before he was mas-
ter of the whole province. The
ancient kalendars place this re-
duction August 2. Hence the
tempus difficillimum in question
would be about the second or
third week in July. The years
U.C. 705 and 706 were not for-
ward years, but quite the re-
verse.
57. Ν. xviii. το. §.1.6. Cf. Philo Judeus,
Hesiod, Opera et Dies, 381—385. 562—575:
t B.C. i. 48.
a B. C. iii. 76—79.
Χ ill. 49. 58.
u ii. 32.
Tt 4
648 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
-his march from Apollonia to Thessaly. This then
would be about the third week in July.
When he was arrived at Gomphi?, there is an allu-
sion to an embassy, which the Thessalians had sent to
him paucis ante mensibus. They sent it, soon after
the junction of Antony with the troops from Brundi-
sium “, three or four months previously.
From Gomphi he marched to Metropolis, and thence
to the plains of Pharsalia: Segetis idoneum locum in
agris nactus, que prope jam matura erat’. He would
arrive about the end of July.
Re frumentaria preeparata ... et satis longo spatio
temporis a Dyrrhachinis przeliis intermisso ὃ. This spa-
tium temporis could scarcely be less than three weeks
or a month‘. It appears, accordingly, from Cicero,
De Divinatione, compared with the other authorities
in the margin, that there was thirty days’ interval, or
upwards, between Pompey’s departure from Dyrrha-
chium, (where Cicero was left behind,) and the time of
the battle ¢ *.
It is not inconsistent with the conclusions thus esta-
blished, that Plutarch tells us, at the time of the bat-
tle, ἣν μὲν ἀκμὴ θέρους καὶ καῦμα πολύ : for this might
truly be said of the first week in August. Among the
other prodigies which preceded the departure of Pom-
pey in pursuit of Caesar, Lucan mentions the circum-
* Lucan indeed supposes that
Cicero was present at Pharsalia
the day before the battle; and
ascribes to him the speech which
certainly mistaken: for Cicero
was prevented by illness from
following Pompey; and was still
at Dyrrhachium when news ar-
determined Pompey to engage: rived of his defeat. Plutarch,
vii. 62. seqq. But herein, he is Cicero, 39.
b B. C. iii. 80. e Ibid. 34. ἃ [bid. 80, 8r. e Ibid. 84. f Cf. Ap-
pian, Bell. Civ. ii. 64.
iii. 5. Cicero, Epp. ad Att. viii. 12. xi. 6, 7.
h Brutus, 4.
§. 13. Plutarch, Cicero, 38.
& De Divinatione, i. 32. ii. 55. Cesar, De B. Civ.
Frontinus, Strategematum ii. 7.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 649
stance of a swarm of bees settling on the standards of
his army.
Necnon innumero cooperta examine signa. vii. 161.
In which he is historically correct ; as the same things
are enumerated by Valerius Maximus’, who wrote in
the reign of Tiberius. And this too is a circumstance
which might happen in the month of July or August.
Nor must we omit to notice the sarcastic remark, at-
tributed to Favonius: ef μηδὲ τῆτες ἔσται τῶν περὶ Tov-
σκλάνον ἀπολαῦσαι συκῶν *, We may learn from Horace,
that figs would not be ripe in Italy before the first
week in September :
Dum ficus prima, calorque
Designatorem decorat lictoribus atris'.
Epistolarum i. vii. 5. See line 2.
It appears also that the Comitia Consularia and Pre-
toria were at hand when Pompey arrived at Pharsa-
lia™: the time of which, though now very irregularly
observed, was commonly August, September, or Oc-
tober *.
The battle was begun in the morning, and over by
noon®: so that Pompey had time sufficient to escape
to Larissa the same night, and thence to the sea.
Upon this point authorities are unanimous?. Cesar
himself followed to Larissa the next day 4,
And so Cesar states himself,
* Lucan, who is as much an
historian as a poet, speaks of
the corn’s being scarcely ripe
even when Pompey was come
into Thessaly. Ad prematuras
segetum jejuna rapinas | Agmi-
na : compulimus. Lib. vii.g8. And
on the very day of the battle,
he says ; Illo forte die Cesar sta-
tione relicta, | Ad segetum ra-
ptus moturus signa. Ibid. 235.
i Lib. i. vi. 12.
ii. vi. 19. Epistole, i. xvi. 16.
xiv. 12. ο B.C. iii. 95, 96.
—723: Appian, B.C. ii. 81.
kK Plutarch, Cesar, 41. Pompeius, 67.
m B. C. iii. 82.
Ῥ Valerius Maximus, i iy. ¢. 5:-Lucan, vii. 712
q B.C. iii. 98.
lib. ii. 85. It appears from
Cicero ®, that he himself return-
ed to Italy after the battle with
no delay: and was arrived at
Brundisium before pridie nonas
Novembres. And this too would
be an argument that the date
of the battle could not have been
earlier than the latter end of
September.
ι Cf. Sermonum,
n Ad Fam, vii. 3. xv. 15.
6560 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
In one or two days after the battle Pompey appears
to have arrived at Amphipolis; and that in the even-
ing. He remained there ad ancoram una nocte, and
then sailed paucis diebus to Mitylene’. These pauct
dies may be referred to the date of the departure from
Larissa, and might reach from the night of September
22 exclusive, to September 25 or 26.
Biduum, he is said to have stayed at Mitylene: and
from thence he sailed first to Cilicia, and afterwards to
Paphus in Cyprus *.
The account, however, of his motions which is given
by Lucan is something different from this. He spe-
cifies his coming to Larissa, ‘but he supposes him to
escape thence, without delay, to the mouth of the Pe-
neus, and sail directly to Mitylene*. From Lesbus he
supposes him to depart, without staying a single night;
exactly at sunset". Before the next morning he had
already passed Chius’: after which, pursuing the
usual route, he is taken without intermission by Sa-
mos, Cos, Gnidos, and Rhodes, to Phaselis in Lycia,
and thence to Selinus in Cilicia, or rather to Synedra
or Syedra, its seaport :
Quo portu mittitque rates recipitque Selinus *.
Here that deliberation is supposed to take place which
was followed by his departure to Egypt. Yet Lucan
also makes him touch at Paphus.
Tune Cilicum liquere solum, Cyproque citatas
Immisere rates, nullas cui pretulit aras
Unde Diva memor Paphiey.
From Lesbus to Pelusium in Egypt, we need not
reckon it more than five or six days’ and nights’ sail,
r B.C. iii. 102. s Cf. Cicero, Philippica, ii. 15: Valerius Maximus, i. v. 6,
t Lib. viii. Το δ. 33—40. u Ibid. 109. 113. 146. 159. V vili. 195. 202.
Χ Ibid. 244—25 t—260. y Ibid. 456.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 651
even by Cilicia and Cyprus’ *. Appian asserts that
Cesar, in pursuit of Pompey, arrived at Alexandria,
from Rhodes, which was more distant than Cyprus, on
the third day after his departure, which took place at
evening; having consequently been only two days and
three nights complete, on the road@. Lucan, likewise,
describes his motions to the same effect, beginning
with the Hellespont.
Sic fatus, repetit classes, et tota secundis
Vela dedit Coris, avidusque urgente procella
Iliacas pensare moras, Asiamque potentem
Prevehitur, pelagoque Rhodon spumante relinquit.
Septima nox Zepbyro nunquam laxante rudentes,
Ostendit Phariis gyptia littora flammis.
Lib. ix. 1000—1005.
which supposes that he was only six days and seven
nights at the utmost, in sailing from the Hellespont to -
Egypt. Even this is too liberal an allowance, if the
statement of Appian be true. It must be remembered,
however, that after August 9, the Etesian winds would
be blowing; as Lucan indeed supposes, by the allusion
to the Cori; and would facilitate both the escape of
Pompey, and the pursuit of Cesar. If the former,
therefore, had left Mitylene on the evening of Septem-
ber 25 or 26, he might still be at Pelusium in Egypt,
on or before October 1.
Authorities, as we saw before, are divided as to the
exact date of the day of his death; some placing it on
his birthday, some the day before, and some the day
after 7. It is observable, however, that Cicero, often
* Evagrius, Εἰ. H. ii. ν. 295. not long after the council of
D. mentions an instance, in Chalcedon, A. D. 452. arrived
which a band of two thousand αὖ their destination on the sixth
soldiers, dispatched from Con- day after they set sail.
stantinople to Alexandria, in the 1 This discrepancy might be
reign of the emperor Marcian, occasioned by the difference in
Z Diodorus Sic. iii. 33 : Strabo, xiv. 4. δ. 2.672: 6. §. 3.746: Plutarch, Pom-
peius, 76. ἃ Bell. Civil. ii. 89. ᾿
652 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
. as he alludes to the fact of his death, is silent about
any such coincidence as that of his perishing on his
birthday>. The same is true of Lucan. We may
conclude, then, that he died sometime about his birth-
day, or when he was fifty-eight complete °, which was
certainly the case; though not necessarily upon the
identical day. The true date of his death might thus
be October 1: which would also be the day of his ar-
rival; for it is agreed that he perished on the same
day that he came*.
The Etesian winds were still blowing after Ceesar’s
arrival at Alexandria?: and as they were commonly
supposed to blow forty or forty-five days from the
middle of July, they would continue to blow until the
end of August. When the Alexandrine war had been
sometime going on, the Etesian winds were blowing
no longer, but instead of them an east wind ®; yet not
a south, by which they were frequently succeeded.
Not long after the beginning of the war it is said‘;
Namque eum, interclusum tempestatibus propter anni
tempus, recipere transmarina auxilia non posse : which
implies that the sea was considered to be shut; and
therefore that the autumnal equinox, at least, was
while he was still at Brundi-
the length of the month of Sep-
tember in the year of Numa,
and in that of Julius Cesar, re-
spectively: which was one day.
If Pompey was born pridie Kal.
Oct. in the year of Numa, his
birthday was September 29. But
this might be confounded with
pridie Kalendas Oct. in the year
of Cesar; and that was Sep-
tember 30.
* Ad Atticum, xi. 6. Cicero
had heardof the death of Pompey,
b Vide De Divinatione, ii. 9. in particular.
ἃ B. Civ. iii. 107.
86. Plutarch, Pompeius, 64.
sium, iv Kal. Dec. from Diocha-
res, as it seems, Cesar’s freed-
man, who might have been sent
to carry the news of it officially
to Rome. <And if he had left
Egypt about the beginning of
October, then at the usual rate
of travelling, it might take him
six weeks or two months to ar-
rive in Italy. Cf. Dio, xii.
18—20.
ο Dio, xlii. 5. Appian, B. C. ii.
e Bell. Alex. 9. 11. f Ibid. 3.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 653
past. The annual inundation of the Nile too was
over ®; and this would not be the case before the same
period in general. The Alexandrine war, then, ap-
pears to have been begun towards the end of the Ju-
lian September, U. C. 706.
The submission of Alexandria, itself, which would
be virtually the close of the contest, is dated by the ca-
lendars March 6, U.C. 707 *. But the entire dura-
tion of Czesar’s residence in Egypt is estimated by Ap-
pian at not less than nine months": and that this
computation bears date from the time of his arrival,
appears from the context of Appian; and also from
the fact that Cleopatra, with whom he became ac-
quainted soon after his arrival, was delivered of a son
by him soon after his departure'. Though he might
have arrived therefore, about the middle of August,
and reduced Alexandria to submission by the sixth
of March; it is nothing incredible that he should still
have prolonged his residence in Egypt, for the sake of ᾿
the society of Cleopatra, to the middle of May.
It is stated in the Paschal chronicle *, that the αὐτο-
vouia of the city of Antioch bore date from the 20th of
Artemisius, or iv Idus of May, in consequence of an
edict of Julius Czesar’s, which was received and recited
on that day, and followed by his proclamation as dicta-
tor or emperor, on the 23rd of the same month. Now
the years of Antioch bear date from the era of this av-
τονομία ; the epoch of which is fixed by the concurrent
testimony of coins and history, to the autumnal quarter
of U.C. 705. But as Cesar could not possibly issue
any such edict in the first year of the era, the spring
* The Maffean calendar dates the reduction of Alexandria,
March 27.
& Ibid. 5, 6, *. h B. C. ii. go. i Plutarch, Julius Cesar, 49. Anto-
nius, 564. * i. 354.1. 19.
654 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
- quarter of U.C. 706, it follows that it must have been
issued in the next, U. C. 707, or in some later year :
and that it was out of compliment to its author merely,
that the epoch of the era was made to bear date from
the autumnal quarter of U.C. 705, not of U. C. 706.
The former was the first year of Czesar’s dictatorship ;
and from that time to his death, in March, U.C. 710,
he was reckoned at Antioch to have reigned four years
and seven months; a computation, which dated from
September, U.C. 705, would be substantially correct.
The receipt of this edict at Antioch, May 12, U.C.
707, would be demonstrative proof that Czsar was
still in Egypt, at the beginning of that month *.
We know no more of the movements of Cesar after
this, than that he was actually at Antioch! on or about
July 18, U. C. 707, and at Ziela, in Cappadocia, on
the second of August, when he defeated Pharnaces.
His freedman, Philotimus, dispatched to Italy while
he was still in Egypt, came to Rhodes on his way,
v Kal. Junias™; which implies that he had left Egypt
* Was iv Ides of May U.C.
707, the date of this rescript of
Cesar’s; that is, May 12 in the
year of Numa? and was Ar-
temisius 20 the day of the
month coinciding with it in the
year of Antioch? But when
did Artemisius in the year of
Antioch at this time begin?
Subsequently, and after the Ju-
lian calendar had been adopted
in Asia, Artemisius, in the year
of Pergamus, is known to have
begun March 25: and its 20
would coincide with April 13,
which in the year of Numa
would be just 28 days before
May 12. This would imply that
1 Cicero, ad Atticum, xi. 20.
“i. 33:
the difference between a certain
date in the rectified year, and a
corresponding one in that of
Numa, U.C. 707, was but 28
days; which is so improbable, as -
almost necessarily to require us
to suppose that May 12 was not
the date of Cesar's rescript
merely, but the actual date in
the Roman rectified year corre-
sponding to the same in the
year of Antioch as adapted to it.
In this case, Artemisius 1 coin-
cided with April 23 ; as it might
do, if it was the eighth month in
the civil year of Antioch, though
the seventh in that of Pergamus.
™ Cicero, Oratio pro Ligario, 3. Ad Atticum,
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 655
three or four days before: all which is inconsistent with
the hypothesis that Cesar did not leave Egypt before
the end of May.
There is no alternative in short, except to suppose
either that the ancient calendars referred to formerly,
have misrepresented the date of the battle, or that the
date which they exhibit is the rectified date; as Sep-
tember 22 or 23 may be the nominal. That great un-
certainty hung over the date of this celebrated battle,
within an hundred years after the event, is indeed im-
plied by Lucan:
Cedant feralia nomina Canne,
Et damnata diu Romanis Allia fastis.
Tempora signavit leviorum Roma malorum:
Hunc voluit nescire diem. vii. 408.
We find Velleius Paterculus complaining of a similar
uncertainty, within less than that time, about the age
of Pompey himself at the period of his death , of which
Plutarch, zz Vita, furnishes an instance®. It would be
absurd, however, to suppose the true date was never
known; and little less so to assume that it might have
been forgotten too early to be noted in the Kalendaria
in question; which appear to have been contemporary,
and to belong in common to the reign of Augustus or
Tiberius, especially the Antiatine and the Amiter-
nine.
The confusion of the times, from the breaking out of
the civil war to the year of the rectification of the ca-
lendar, may, perhaps, render it doubtful, whether the
usual intercalation would be observed in U. C. 706.
But Cesar himself was the pontifex maximus at that
n Lib. ii. 53. o Capp. 6. 7. Pompey is said to be 23. U. C. 671, Consule
Scipione, which is correct. Hence he would be 24. U. C. 672. (12.) yet, 46, it is
said he was 40 only at his Triumph; when he was in reality 45 : for U. C. 693
—648=45: cap. 64. Plutarch makes him 58. U.C. 706, which is correct, yet (79)
fifty-nine complete at his death, the same year.
656 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
-time *; and it was the duty of the pontifical college in
particular to see that the intercalations were duly
made. There is authority enough to prove that U.C.
702, U.C. 704, and U.C. 708, were regular interca-
lary years: on which principle, U. C. 706 would be,
or should have been, so too.
First—it appears from Asconii Prefatio in Ora-
tionem pro Milone, that U. C. 702, when Pompey was
consul iii. stze collega, was intercalated. Pompey him-
self was appointed consul v Kal. Martias, mense enter-
kalario: and the Oratio pro Milone was delivered vi
Ides of April afterwards 7.
For the next year, Cicero writes to Atticus, from his
province, Ut simus annui, ne intercaletur quidem P:
again, in a letter written on the Ides of February,
U.C. 704: Cum scies Rome intercalatum sit necne 4.
So likewise: Ea sic observabo, quasi intercalatum non
sit’. And that there was the usual intercalation, U.C.
704, whether Cicero wished it or not, appears from
Dio’. Curio, says Dio, to serve a party purpose in be-
half of Czesar, proposed another intercalary month to
be inserted that year: ἠξίου μῆνα ἄλλον... .. ἐπεμβληθῆναι.
There had been one, then, inserted previously.
* He became Pontifex Maxi- Feb. U.C. 702. This number
mus on the death of Metellus
Pius, U. C. 691. Dio, xxxvii.
37. Cf. Suetonius, Julius, 13.
+ If there were any doubt
about the fact of this interca-
lation, U.C. 702, it would be
removed by the help of Cicero’s
ludicrous date, ad Att. v. 13.
Ephesum venimus ad diem xi
Kal. Sextiles (U. C. 703) sexa-
gesimo et quingentesimo post
pugnam Bovillam. He refers
to the death of Clodius, xiii Kal.
Pv. 13. qv. 21.
cannot be made out even in
round numbers, (oldstyle,)except
by supposing an intercalation,
U.C. 702. Cf.vi.1. Also he reck-
ons it, pro Milone 35, the hun-
dredth day on the vi Ides of
April, in the same year, when
the oration was pronounced,
from the death of Clodius, xiii.
Kal. Feb. Neither can this be
made out even in round num-
bers without an intercalation.
5 xl. 62.
Y vi. I.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 657
As to the year U.C. 708, it was intercalated, accord-
ing to Suetonius, ea consuetudine*.
The irregularity of the intercalations*, generally
speaking, of which Suetonius complains /oc. cit. renders
it superfluous to go much further back, in tracing out
the series of such years, for any length of time. The
first instance of intercalation upon record, according to
Varro, as quoted by Macrobius, was Coss. Pinario et
Furio, U.C.282: according to Fulvius, also quoted, was
much later, U. C. 562, or 563. The Fasti triumphales
and consulares notice some such years. B.C. 189 was
an intercalated year. Lucius Scipio Asiaticus triumphed
that year, Mense intercalario, pridie Kalendas Martias".
B. C. 167 was intercalated Postridie Terminalia* : and
B. C. 170 was the same, Tertio die post Terminalia ’.
In these last instances, there were three years be-
tween two successive intercalations; which does not of
itself imply any irregularity. The year of Numa?
consisting of 355 days, not of 354, was ten days and
six hours, not eleven days and six hours, less than.a
Julian one of 365 days and six hours. But the rule,
originally, was to intercalate first 22 days, and then 23,
alternately, every two years, the place of the interca-
lation being after Feb. 23: Terminalibus jam peractis.
Four such intercalations in eight years would amount
to ninety days; but the corresponding excess of eight
Julian over eight of Numa’s years would amount only
to eighty-two: a difference which in 24 years, or
three periods of eight years, would be equal to 24 days.
* The intercalation extraor- made at twice, is alluded to by
dinary in this year, or that in Cicero, Ad Fam. vi. 14: Ego
consequence of the rectification idem tamen, cum a. d. v Kalen-
of the calendar, an intercalation das intercalares priores, &c.
* Cf. Solini Polyhistor, i. δ. 43. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi. 1.447. Servius,
Ad Mneid. v. 49. Macrobius,i. 14. « Livy, xxxvii. 59. *xlv. 44. Υ̓ ΧΙ ΤΙ.
Macrobius, i. 13.
VOL. III. σι
658 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
To restore, therefore, the equality of the year of
Numa to the Julian or Solar, fertio quoque octennio,
says Macrobius, sta intercalandos dispensabant dies,
ut non nonaginta, sed (90-24) sexaginta sex interca-
larent*. I understand this to mean that for the last
eight years of every 24, they introduced three interca-
lary months of 22 days; two at the end of three years,
and one at the end of two*. On this principle, be-
tween two successive intercalations, (as for instance,
B.C. 170 and B.C. 167.) there might be periodically,
that is, every 24 years, three years’, and not two years’
interval. This could not, however, have been the case,
at the period of the battle of Pharsalia; because U. C.
704, before it, and U.C. 708, after it, were, as we have
seen, intercalated years.
A still more recent example of an intercalary year
was U.C. 671, two years before U. C. 673, when Ci-
cero’s Oration pro P. Quintio was eanaculaa > "On
this principle, U.C.703, just 32 years afterwards, it
might be said, would be intercalary. But two inter-
calations only might take place in six years. U.C. 671
* And this was more agree-_ differs from this; for he speaks
able to the usage of the Greeks,
who intercalated thrice in the
octaeteric cycle; in the third, the
fifth, and the eighth years, re-
spectively : τοὺς ἐμβολίμους μῆνες
ἔταξαν ἄγεσθαι ἐ ἐν τῷ τρίτῳ ἔτει, καὶ
πέμπτῳ, καὶ ὀγδόφ' ᾿δύο μὲν μῆνας,
μεταξὺ δύο ἐτῶν πιπτόντων, that is,
two complete years; viz. be-
tween the eighth and third, and
the fifth and eighth: ἕνα δὲ, pe-
ταξὺ ἑνὸς ἐνιαυτοῦ ἀγομένου, VIZ.
that between the third and fifth.
Geminus, cap. vi. Uranologion,
35-C.D. Epiphanius’ account of
the octaeteric cycle, in his time,
a Cf. Livy, i. 19.
of ninety days as being to be
distributed over the cycle, in
three intercalary months of full
thirty days each; xara τρία ἔτη
μὴν εἷς, καὶ κατὰ δύο τὰ ὕστερα ἔτη
μὴν eis: that is, every three
years one month, which means
two months in the first six
years, and every two last years
of the cycle one month: Ope-
rum i. 825. C. Audiani xiii. On
this principle, the intercalated
years were the third, the sixth,
and the eighth ; which Geminus
supposed to be the third, the
fifth, and the eighth.
Ὁ Capp. 6. 8. 12. 18. 25. Aulus Gellius, xv. 28.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 659
might be one of those; and U.C. 674 the next: and
U. C. 676 might be the end of that cycle of 24 years.
Hence U. C. 676 + 24 or U. C. 700, would be the end
of the next: and U.C. 702, U. C. 704, U. C. 706,
U. C. 708, would be the first eight years of the next
cycle, and all intercalary of course.
The implicit testimony of Cicero respecting the date
of the vernal equinox, U. C.'705, before the correction
of the calendar, derives some confirmation from Dio-
nysius of Halicarnassus, where he speaks of certain
ceremonies as performed on the Ides or at the middle of
May, ὅσον τι μικρὸν after the vernal equinox’. Diony-
sius, it is true, was writing his history between U. C.
725 and U. C. 747, and therefore after the correction
of the calendar in U. C. 708, when the vernal equinox
had been fixed to March 25. But he can scarcely
mean here the vernal equinox, as it had been recently
fixed; he must mean it as it had been before: for he
would not have called the Ides of May ὅσον τι μικρὸν
after March 25.*
But the most decisive criterion of the difference be-
tween the civil year and the solar, at particular pe-
riods before the redressing of the calendar, is supplied
by the dates of eclipses, which are mentioned in the
Roman historians, and specified according to the old
style. Thus, there was a solar eclipse, B. C. 190,
v Ides of Quintilis®. This must be the eclipse, men-
tioned in Pingré for that year, on March 14, and vi-
* It may be supposed, too,
from what is mentioned in Livy4,
relating to the Ver Sacrum, that
the time of the vernal equinox,
U. C. 560, was somewhere about
Pridie Kalendas Maias, if not
that day itself. This would shew
ς Ant. Rom. i. 38. p. 97. 1.1.
d xxxiv. 44.
a continued rate of progression
for 520 years, which in the
course of 148 more, might bring
it to the middle of May. For
the explanation of the phrase,
Ver Sacrum, see Dionysius Hal.
Ant. Rom. i. 16.
ὁ Livy xxxvii. 4.
uu 2a
660
sible all over Europe.
Appendix, Dissertation Fourteenth.
Between March 14 and v Ides
of Quintilis (July 11) in the year of Numa, the differ-
ence would be 115 days in all‘.
There was an eclipse of the moon, the night before
Pridie Nonas Septembres*, Sept. 3%. old style, B.C.
168, the night before the battle of Pydna; which
* This date has been objected
to, because Livy, xliv. 19, men-
tions the Ides of March, when
the consul Aimilius Paulus en-
tered upon his year of office at
Rome; and Ib. 22. the last day
of the same month, when the
Ferie Latinz were celebrated by
him at. Rome, immediately be-
fore his departure to Macedo-
nia. It appears also from xlv. 41,
that after his arrival to assume
the command of the army, the
war was decided in fifteen days’
time. Between March 31 and
Sept. 3, in the year of Numa,
the interval would much ex-
ceed that.
As to this difficulty, [ will
simply observe that the consist-
ency of Livy with himself, in his
date of the eclipse, is confirmed
by the further date of the day
when the news of the battle of
Pydna was brought to Rome ;
Ante diem decimum Kalendas
Octobres; lib. xlv. 1: on the
thirteenth day after it was
fought, or thereabouts. Nor does
it appear to me that there is
any absolute necessity of re-
stricting the entire duration of
the war, dated from the Ides of
March in the year in question,
to the incredibly short space of
time, which Aimilius alludes to
in his speech; (and in the as-
sertion of which, Livy is corro-
f Macrobius, i. 13.
borated by many other author-
ities ;) but only to the interval
between his actual arrival in
Macedonia, in the presence of
the enemy, and the decision of
the contest by the victory of
Pydna. Nor is it certain that
Livy in speaking of the Ides, and
of the last day of March, pre-
viously, speaks there according
to the old style, rather than to
the new. In fact, the supposi-
tion of only fifteen days’ inter-
val, or not much more, between
the time of milius’ leaving
Brundisium, and the date of the
battle, is inconsistent with either
mode of reckoning alike, especi-
ally with that which supposes
the time of his departure about
April 1.'in the civil year ; if the
night before the battle was sig-
nalized by a lunar eclipse, which
fell out on June 21, in the so-
lar, or Sept. 3, in the civil year.
On this principle, too, Aumilius
must have set sail not long be-
fore the beginning of June in
the solar year; whatever might
be the date answering to that,
at the time, in the civil year.
And who will consider it pro-
bable that an experienced com-
mander like him, going out upon
an expedition of so much danger
and uncertainty as this, would
not think of taking the field be-
fore the beginning of June?
g Cicero, De Repub. i. circa principium. Livy, xliv. 37.
Valerius Maximus, viii. xi. 1. Pliny, H. N. ii.9. Justin, xxxiii. 1. Zonaras, ix.
23.458. A. Cf.24. 459. D. Polybius, xxix. 6. and Suidas, in Πολλὰ κενὰ τοῦ πολέμου.
~
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 661
Pingré exhibits on the 21st of June. The difference
between June 21, and September 3 in the year of
Numa, would be seventy-one days in all. But if B.C.
170 and B. C. 167 were intercalated, as we have seen,
we may presume that neither B.C. 169 nor B. C. 168
was so. In this case, and making allowance for the
excess produced by the mere absence of the usual inter-
calation, the true difference between the civil and the
solar year would be only 71—26 days at most, Sept. 3,
B.C. 168: or not more than forty-five days; which is
the exact amount of the difference between the solar
and lunar year, U. C. 708. B.C. 45.
A solar eclipse is also specified B. C. 188, for which
Pingré has none except on July 17, whereas this ap-
pears to be mentioned soon after the Ides of March".
In Cesar, De Bello Africano, a remarkable storm is’
specified as occurring at the time of the setting of the
Pleiads, Virgiliarum signo confecto', which setting
took place, for the meridian of Utica, where Czsar
was, somewhere about vi Kal. Feb. U. C. 708, accord-
ing to the old style. ‘The day, it is true, is not pre-
cisely stated; and, therefore, no decisive argument can
be founded on the coincidence. In the rectified year,
the date of the Virgiliarum occasus was iii Idus No-
vembres: and modern astronomical calculations have
shewn that this setting happened, for the meridian in
question, U.C. 707, November 10 or 11. From this
latter date, to vi Kal. Feb. old style, the interval would
be 72 days, or 27 more than 45, our supposed excess,
U.C. 708. But of these 27, twenty-two or twenty-
three would be accounted for by the lapse of two years
complete, since the last intercalation U.C. 706. And
as the writer is not exact that the storm in question
happened ‘critically on vi Kal. Feb. but merely about
h Livy, xxxviii. 36. 35. 147. 37:
662 Appendix. Dissertation Fourteenth.
that period, it might have happened two or three days
earlier, which would explain the remaining difference.
That two years had certainly elapsed since the no-
minal January, U.C.'706, is unquestionable. The rest
of that year, after the battle of Pharsalia, and all U.C:
707, until the very end of the year, were spent by
Cesar in the east. His victory over Juba, which the
calendars place on April 6 or 8*, was evidently gained
on or about the Nones of April, (old style,) April 5 in
this year!; and he himself having set out from Utica
on the Ides of June, (old style,) June 13, arrived at
Rome, 28 days after; having left Caralis in Sardinia
111 Kal. Quinctiles ™.
The date of the battle of Munda, as exhibited by
two ancient calendars, (the Maffzean and Amiternine,)
is remarkable for an anomaly just the reverse of that
of the battle of Pharsalia. The author of the work
De Bello Hispanico, after mentioning xi Kal. March,
and ad d. iii Non. Martias, says at last ®, that the vic-
tory was won ipsis Liberalibus; with regard to which
fact he is supported by Plutarch®: to whom we may
add Dio, who tells us the news of the victory was re-
ceived at Rome, the day before the Palilia, April 20?.
As the date of the Liberalia was xvi Kal. Apriles,
March 17, there was nothing impossible in this; for
examples in abundance have been produced elsewhere,
to shew that a month might elapse before tidings
could reach Rome from Spain. Cesar himself was
twenty-seven days the same year in travelling from
Rome to Obulco, not far from the scene of the action
in that country4; though no general of antiquity tra-
velled with such expedition.
k Cf. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 377. 380. 1 De Bello Africano, 79. 75.82. Cf. Dio,
xliii. 14. m 98. N IQ. 27. 31. © Julius Cesar, 56. P Dio, xliii. 42.
4 Strabo, iii. 4. 429, 430.
Date of the Battle of Pharsalia. 663
Now the calendars place the battle on the 20th of
July, 123 days later than March 17, both being re-
ferred to the year of Numa. As the victory was won
U.C. 709, after the reformation of the calendar, the
date of the author De Bello Hispanico may be the
true date in the Julian year. That of the calendars
could not be the date even in the year of Numa; nor
can we explain it except by supposing an error in the
20th of July, for some other number and month; or
that this date is intended not of the precise day of the
battle of Munda, but of the absolute termination of the
contest in Spain. Nicolaus of Damascus, in his life of
Augustus", tells us that Caesar was seven months em-
ployed against Cnzus Pompeius in Spain: and as he
seems to have set out at the end of December, U. C.
708, or the beginning of January, U.C. 709, seven
months from that time would actually terminate in
July. Cicero, Ad Atticum, xiii. 20, shews that Cesar
was at Hispalis, April 30: and ibid. 21, that he was
not expected to leave Spain, or to return to Rome, be-
fore August 1*.
* Four of the ancient calen- it; though it may also denote
dars, the Maffean, Copranican, the date of the reduction of
Amiternine, and Antiatine,con- Spain, U.C. 705, when Cesar
cur in dating the reduction of was contending there against
Spain on August 2, which may Afranius and Petreius.
be the day on which Cesar left
¥ Cap. x.
END OF VOL. III.
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